How the Leopard Got His Spots

In the beginning, when the world was quite new, the Leopard and the Ethiopian lived on the great, dry plain. Everything there was sand-yellow and dust-brown: the grass, the earth, the sky in the heat haze – and the animals too. The giraffes were solid-colored, the zebras were solid-colored, the antelopes were solid-colored. The Leopard was yellow-brown like the warm sand, and the Ethiopian was dust-brown from the sun and wind. The two were the most skillful hunters on the plain.

Every morning they crept together. "Who do you want today?" asked the Leopard.

"Maybe a zebra, maybe a giraffe," answered the Ethiopian. And almost always they got what they wanted, because their colors matched the plain exactly. It was easy to hide where everything looked the same.

At last the giraffes, zebras, and all the others grew tired of always being found. One night they whispered to each other: "Let's move. Let's seek the shady forest, where the light plays and the ground is spotted with sun." They padded and trotted away, far from the open plain, among the trees and bushes, where the sun fell in stripes and dots over the ground.

When morning came the Leopard and the Ethiopian crept as usual. But the plain was silent. No hoof prints, no rustling leaves, no long necks sticking up over the grass.

"Where have they gone?" asked the Leopard.

"I don't know," said the Ethiopian. "We'll have to search."

They searched one day, and another, and another. They searched until their paws and feet were tired, but they found nothing. Then they met an old, wise baboon sitting on a stone at the edge of the forest. He blinked slowly and said: "I know what you seek, and I know why you don't find it."

"Tell us," begged the Ethiopian. "We are hungry and understand nothing."

"They have gone into the shadow," said the baboon. "Into the great forest where the light becomes stripes and spots. And you, you still walk around as if the world were even and sandy. If you want to find them, you must go where they are. And you must change, as they have changed. That's advice from one who knows shadows."

The Leopard looked into the dark trees. "Change ourselves? How?"

"Go and see," said the baboon. "I have already said enough."

The Leopard and the Ethiopian went into the forest. There it was cool. The sun filtered through the leaves and laid light spots on the ground. The tree trunks drew stripes across the path. The light shifted with every step, as if someone painted the ground with a brush that never stood still.

"I can smell scents," whispered the Leopard. "They're here. But I can't see them."

Something rustled. A pair of legs ran past – dark, light, dark, light – and disappeared. A long neck appeared and became spots that dissolved between the shadows.

"Come out and show yourselves!" called the Leopard. "Be polite to old friends!"

"Come here and catch us, if you can!" a voice called back and laughed. A striped back glimmered and became shadow again.

The Ethiopian crouched and looked intently. He saw how the light fell in stripes over a trunk, how the bush leaves made dots on the ground. He stroked his hand over the earth and found soot from an old camp. He mixed the soot with a little damp clay into a thick paint.

"What are you doing?" asked the Leopard.

"I'm changing myself," said the Ethiopian. "The baboon was right. The world in here is not the plain's world. If I'm to blend in with it, I must take the forest's color."

He stroked the dark mixture over his skin, slowly and carefully, until he became deep and gleaming like the shadow between the trees. The Leopard blinked.

"Now I can barely see you!" he exclaimed. "If you stand still in the shadow you're like night itself. Can you do something for me too?"

"Completely dark you shouldn't be," said the Ethiopian. "You need the forest's language on your fur. Stripes suit one who runs between trunks. But you sneak in the silent land of spots. So you shall have spots."

He dipped his fingertips in the dark paint. "Stand still," he asked. "And don't dart away when it tickles."

He pressed his five fingertips softly against the Leopard's yellow fur: five small dots at a time. On the back, on the sides, on the legs, on the tail. Spots here, spots there, spots everywhere where shadow's light might be broken. The Leopard sometimes giggled when it tickled, but stayed still.

"Look at yourself," said the Ethiopian at last. "Stand under that spotted sunlight patch."

The Leopard slid into a field of light and shadow. Suddenly he was only half visible, as if he were made of spotted sunshine. "I'm disappearing!" he whispered happily. "I am the forest!"

"Then we're ready," said the Ethiopian.

When they crept onward the forest was full of secrets. But now they were also secret. They saw striped backs again, but this time they came closer, quiet as falling leaves. They saw spotted legs, but now they knew how to stand in a patch of light. And when midday came, they were no longer hungry.

Since then everything has been as you see it today. The zebra wears her stripes, for the forest's light drew them on her body. The giraffe wears her large spots, for spotted sunshine became her best hiding place. And the Leopard wears his spots, for a friend with five fingertips pressed them on him, right where shadow and light dance. The Ethiopian became dark as the forest itself, for there, shadow is often the safest cloak.

If you ask a really old baboon why such things happened, he may only wink and say: "When the world changes, sometimes you must change with it. And if you ever stand on a forest path where the sun streams through the leaves and the ground looks like a leopard skin, then you'll know why."