Bagheera (Hindi: बघीरा / Baghīrā) is a fictional character in Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories in The Jungle Book (coll.

[1] Born in captivity in the menagerie of the Raja of Udaipur, Rajasthan, India, Bagheera begins to plan for his freedom after his mother dies.

Once he is mature and strong enough, he breaks the lock on his cage and escapes into the jungle, where cunning nature win him the respect of all its other inhabitants, except for Shere Khan the Tiger.

Bagheera shares in many of Mowgli's adventures as he grows, but eventually the time comes when the man-cub becomes a man and has to return to human society.

Early in the film's development, Bill Peet suggested Howard Morris as the voice of Bagheera, but Disney did not approve of the choice,[2] with Reitherman and other animators preferring either Karl Swenson or Sebastian Cabot.

Though Bagheera is absent from the series TaleSpin, which uses several characters from the 1967 film, many of Shere Khan's employees and military personnel are black panthers strongly resembling him.

Bagheera rushes to help Mowgli and his friend Shanti after Shere Khan attacks them but has to wait outside the temple where they are trapped, warning Baloo to be careful as he travels inside.

Hearing Shere Khan's roar, Bagheera leads them by his tail to a pack of wolves, who adopt them as Mowgli is kind to one of their species.

This incarnation is female, but her role is similar to the 1967 animated version, in addition serving as Mowgli's teacher (alongside Baloo) in which she teaches him how to hunt in the jungle and defend against Shere Khan.

Bagheera rescues Mowgli after Shere Khan kills the boy's father and raises him to be a creature of the jungle as part of Akela's wolf pack.

Bagheera helps Baloo and the wolf pack fight Shere Khan long enough to allow Mowgli to lure the tiger over a pit of fire, into which he falls to his death.

Kingsley described Bagheera in an interview as an adoptive parent to Mowgli whose personality was somewhat militaristic, saying that "he's instantly recognizable by the way that he talks, how he acts, and what his ethical code is".

[7] Kingsley's voice acting was praised by Rotten Tomatoes as "[bringing] the appropriate level of gravitas to the strait-laced Bagheera",[8][9] and was ranked as the best animal performance in the film by Vox, who called Bagheera "the concerned parent, worried about what his child will find around the next corner, the big cat who knows he has to let go just a little but can't find it in himself to do so".