Are black leopard, black jaguar, pather,cougar and moutain lions the same thing?
Three distinct species. Leopards are from Africa and Asia (black leopards are just a color variation of the species). Jaguars are from Central and South America (again there is a black color variation that is sometimes referred to as a “black panther”). Cougars, mountian lions and pumas (and the Florida panther) are all the same species, though there are some subspecies. The comment that one of the other people made about comparing these different species of cats to Mexicans, Asians, African Americans, etc. was actually the stupid comment, as these area all races of the same species, humans. It’s understandible to be confused about all these common names, and most people don’t really know that they are seperate species, even in the areas these particular cats inhabit.
No. Leopards and Jaguars are different species though both occasionally produce black coated individuals or ‘melanistic’ individuals. Panther is a general name and is applied to cats in the genus ‘panthera’ – even lions are panthers. Cougar is a tough case, because they’re also called mountain lions, panthers and pumas but they’re all the same species and also I believe can produce melanistic examples but more rarely. It is the leopard that seems to occur in most often and therefore most black panthers in a zoo are going to be leopards. You might enjoy a little bit of reading about classification or systematics – all cats are in the family Felidae – you might be able to find a tree that includes extinct varieties such as the sabre toothed cats. Regards.
