Amur Leopard

Panthera pardus orientalis

Status: Endangered

Xiwangmu, Queen Mother of the West, is a powerful chinese goddess with dominion over fertility, health, creation, and destruction. She is the wife of the Jade Emperor, and the guardian of the Peaches of Immortality. In the earliest mentions of her, she has a wild and ferocious nature and is depicted as a feral being. In the chinese bestiary Shan Hai Jing, she is described as having a leopard's tail and tiger's teeth and "administers calamities from heaven as well as five punishments." She wears a jade hairpiece, but her hair is untidy, and three birds bring food to her.

In later artwork and tales, she much changed from this early version. She is frequently accompanied by a toad, a hare, and a nine-tailed-fox. She is shown as a more refined and cultivated vision, a beautiful divine being, elegantly coifed, robed in silk and adorned with jewels. But the power that lies beneath the cultured visage is still that of the primal leopard-tailed matriarch.

References:
Strassberg, Richard. A chinese Bestiary: Strange creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas. University of california Press, 2002, plate XIV.

James, J. M. (1995). An Iconographic Study of Xiwangmu during the Han Dynasty. Artibus Asiae, 55(1/2), 17-41. https://doi.org/10.2307/3249761