Black panther animal biography

Variant of leopard and jaguar

For other uses, see Black panther (disambiguation).

A black panther is the melanistic colour variant of the leopard (Panthera pardus) and the jaguar (Panthera onca).

Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical rosettes are also present. They have been documented mostly in tropical forests, with black leopards in Africa and Asia, and black jaguars in Central and South America.

Black panther animal biography

Melanism is caused by a recessive allele in the leopard, and by a dominant allele in the jaguar.

Leopard

In 1788, Jean-Claude Delamétherie described a black leopard that was kept in the Tower of London and had been brought from Bengal.^[1] In 1794, Friedrich Albrecht Anton Meyer proposed the scientific nameFelis fusca for this cat, the Indian leopard (P.

p. fusca).^[2][3] In 1809, Georges Cuvier described a black leopard kept in the Ménagerie du Jardin des plantes that had been brought