A black panther is typically a melanistic color variant of any of several species of larger cat. In Latin America, wild 'black panthers' may be black jaguars (Panthera onca); in Asia and Africa, black leopards (Panthera pardus); in Asia, possibly the very rare black tigers (Panthera tigris); and in North America they may be black jaguars or possibly black cougars (Puma concolor – although this has not been proven to have a black variant), or smaller cats.
Captive black panthers may be black jaguars, or more commonly black leopards.
Read more about Black Panther: Melanism, Leopard, Jaguar, Cougar, Pseudo-melanism
Famous quotes containing the word black:
“If there is a man white as marble
Sits in a wood, in the greenest part,
Brooding sounds of the images of death,
So there is a man in black space
Sits in nothing that we know,
Brooding sounds of river noises....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)