Science!
I have had, since I was a wee lad, a small stuffed animal of a leopard, which in my incredibly imaginative youth I named "Spots." Alongside Fuzzball, my teddy bear; Mane, the lion; & Moose-Moose (take a wild, shot-in-the-dark guess); Spots is part of the old guard, my most cherished stuffed animals. Science can help us to understand why Spots has his spots, even if it cannot yet tell us how: Spotlight on spotslink.

Science!