Very seldom does it happen that Tadoba fails to thrill the wildlife enthusiast, especially when they are expecting to see tigers! But what happens when you have already seen a beautiful family of tigers (Kuhani), then a sloth bear, and then driving towards Shivanjhari water hole, hoping to be even luckier and spot the other famed tiger family of Kolsa (Shivanjhari); you reach the spot to find not the striped feline but a spotted one, and that too BLACK? Thrill to the point infinity!!!!

So unexpected! That the Forest Guide, when first spotted the black creature, assumed it to be a Palm Civet, but Svasara’s accompanying naturalist with our guests from Belgium, instantly remarked, “cannot be a civet as the tail seems much longer than the body!” Swarna, our naturalist quickly grabbed his binoculars to zoom in (the waterhole is at a distance of about 20’ from where the jeep track is), and then what he experienced having spotted for the first time a melanistic Indian Leopard at Tadoba, is impossible to express in words………

We thank his presence of mind, to quickly request the guests to photograph this once in a lifetime sight! Although there have been prior discussions at Tadoba on the existence of a black panther in the Kolsa Zone, it has never been photographed till last evening.

22^nd May 2018, around 6 PM IST, Kolsa Range, Tadoba (Please note there was a camera screenshot shared earlier which mentioned Belgian time 13:52): Indeed a historical day here! And sooooo special for Svasara as it was our guests and naturalist who got to be the lucky ones to witness this sighting.

p.s. contrary to the media reports, their jeep was the sole jeep that witnessed this sighting. All sighting pictures published in this blog are taken by Guest Juliet Decaestecker and are the only veritable pictures of this sighting.

Group Photo: From Left to Right Praful Yerme (jeep driver), Shalik Yerme (forest guide), Jean Francois Aernouts, Kids Lina, Zia, and Ruby, Juliet Decaestecker (svasara guests) and Swarna Chakrabarty (svasara naturalist)

Sighting Pic Courtesy: #JulietDecaestecker #SvasaraGuest