A Michael Broad Blog
RELATED: Picture of a beautiful black jaguar a.k.a. black panther (melanistic jaguar) Misidentification as Black Panthers: Black jaguars are sometimes confused with black panthers, but it’s essential to clarify that “black panther” isn’t a distinct species. Instead, it’s a term commonly used for melanistic leopards and jaguars. Both black big cats belong to the …
We can see that this is a leopard and not a jaguar as the leopard is slenderer than the stockier jaguar. They melanistic jaguars look amazing. I don’t know where it was taken. It could be one of many countries as the common leopard has the widest distribution of all the wild cat species. …
Dwight Ward contacted me by email with his story of the sighting of a melanistic (black) mountain lion in Utah while he was hiking across the country. It was back in 1972. I think his story is worth publishing here because it’s a rare one. For those who are interested, I have a page …
The Indian ranger, Susanta Nanda, in his tweet describes this tiger, captured in a camera trap video, as melanistic. I think, in fact, that the tiger is better described as being pseudo-melanistic. This is because the stripes are still visible against the background but the stripes are much thicker and therefore much closer together …
People search for a ‘black leopard picture’. Here are some good ones. Leopards can often have the appearance of being jet black but they are not. Sometimes a black leopard is very dark with a black or dark grey pattern but not completely black. They have ghost markings or the spots can be quite …
This is a great picture from a short video made by The Big Cat Sanctuary showing Neron, a male, melanistic jaguar. The spots are called rosettes and they are nicely visible. It shows that black jaguars, a.k.a. “black panthers” are not completely jet black. They often retain ghost markings but the markings on Neron …
The Russian breeder, Лариса Десятова, of this very interesting-looking black purebred cat describes him as a: 🧚♀️ Bengali male 🧚♀️ melanistic, born 30/11/20/. I believe that she means “Bengal male”. There is no breed called the ‘Bengali’ to the best of my knowledge or at least I have never heard of such a breed. …
Yes, leopards and black panthers are the same but I have to add that the phrase “black panthers” refers to any melanistic (black) large wild cat. As a consequence it also applies to jaguars and pumas (there are no black tigers or lions). They are also called melanistic leopards. Melanism is a genetic mutation …
