''Panthera'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

within the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Felidae that was named and described by

Lorenz Oken Lorenz Oken (1 August 1779 – 11 August 1851) was a German naturalist, botanist, biologist, and ornithologist. Oken was born Lorenz Okenfuss (german: Okenfuß) in Bohlsbach (now part of Offenburg), Ortenau, Baden, and studied natural history ...

in 1816 who placed all the spotted cats in this group. Reginald Innes Pocock revised the classification of this genus in 1916 as comprising the

tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on ...

(''P. tigris''), lion (''P. leo''), jaguar (''P. onca''), and leopard (''P. pardus'') on the basis of common

cranial Standard anatomical terms of location are used to unambiguously describe the anatomy of animals, including humans. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position pro ...

features. Results of

genetic analysis Genetic analysis is the overall process of studying and researching in fields of science that involve genetics and molecular biology. There are a number of applications that are developed from this research, and these are also considered parts of ...

indicate that the

snow leopard The snow leopard (''Panthera uncia''), also known as the ounce, is a felid in the genus '' Panthera'' native to the mountain ranges of Central and South Asia. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because the global population is es ...

(formerly ''Uncia uncia'') also belongs to the genus ''Panthera'' (''P. uncia''), a classification that was accepted by

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

assessors in 2008. The tiger, lion, jaguar and leopard are the only cat species with anatomical structures that enable them to roar; the snow leopard cannot. The primary reason for this was formerly assumed to be the incomplete

ossification Ossification (also called osteogenesis or bone mineralization) in bone remodeling is the process of laying down new bone material by cells named osteoblasts. It is synonymous with bone tissue formation. There are two processes resulting in ...

of the hyoid bone. However, new studies show the ability to roar is due to other morphological features, especially of the larynx.

Etymology

The word ''panther'' derives from

classical Latin Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was used from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, when it developed into Late Latin. In some later period ...

''panthēra'', itself from the

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''pánthēr'' (πάνθηρ).

Characteristics

In ''Panthera'' species, the dorsal profile of the

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, th ...

is flattish or evenly convex. The frontal inter

orbit In celestial mechanics, an orbit is the curved trajectory of an object such as the trajectory of a planet around a star, or of a natural satellite around a planet, or of an artificial satellite around an object or position in space such as ...

al area is not noticeably elevated, and the area behind the elevation is less steeply sloped. The basi

axis is nearly horizontal. The inner chamber of the bullae is large, the outer small. The partition between them is close to the

external auditory meatus The ear canal (external acoustic meatus, external auditory meatus, EAM) is a pathway running from the outer ear to the middle ear. The adult human ear canal extends from the pinna to the eardrum and is about in length and in diameter. Str ...

. The convexly rounded chin is sloping. All ''Panthera'' species have an incompletely ossified hyoid bone. A specially adapted larynx with proportionally larger

vocal folds In humans, vocal cords, also known as vocal folds or voice reeds, are folds of throat tissues that are key in creating sounds through vocalization. The size of vocal cords affects the pitch of voice. Open when breathing and vibrating for speec ...

is covered in a large fibro-elastic pad. These characteristics enable them to roar. Only the snow leopard cannot roar, as it has shorter vocal folds of that provide a lower resistance to airflow; it was therefore proposed to be retained in the genus ''Uncia''. ''Panthera'' species can

prusten Prusten is a form of communicative behaviour exhibited by some members of the family Felidae. Prusten is also referred to as chuffing or chuffle (verb and noun). It is described as a short, low Sound intensity, intensity, non-threatening Animal com ...

, which is a short, soft, snorting sound; it is used during contact between friendly individuals. The roar is an especially loud call with a distinctive pattern that depends on the species.

Evolution

The geographic origin of the ''Panthera'' is most likely northern

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

. '' Panthera blytheae'', the oldest known ''Panthera'' species, is similar in skull features to the snow leopard. The tiger, snow leopard, and clouded leopard

genetic lineage A genetic lineage, also known as genetic pedigree, is a series of mutations which connect an ancestral genetic type (allele, haplotype, or haplogroup) to derivative type. In cases where the genetic tree is very bushy the order of mutations in the li ...

s dispersed in Southeast Asia during the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

. Genetic studies indicate that the pantherine cats diverged from the subfamily

Felinae The Felinae are a subfamily of the family Felidae. This subfamily comprises the small cats having a bony hyoid, because of which they are able to purr but not roar. Other authors have proposed an alternative definition for this subfamily: as ...

between six and ten million years ago. The genus '' Neofelis'' is

sister A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a family, familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to r ...

to ''Panthera''. The clouded leopard appears to have diverged about . ''Panthera'' diverged from other cat species about and then evolved into the species tiger about , snow leopard about and leopard about . Mitochondrial sequence data from fossils suggest that the

American lion ''Panthera atrox'', better known as the American lion, also called the North American lion, or American cave lion, is an extinct pantherine cat that lived in North America during the Pleistocene epoch and the early Holocene epoch, about 340,0 ...

(''P. atrox'') is a sister lineage to ''P. spelaea'' that diverged about . The snow leopard is nested within ''Panthera'' and is the

sister species In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

of the tiger. Results of a 2016 study based on analysis of biparental

nuclear genome Nuclear DNA (nDNA), or nuclear deoxyribonucleic acid, is the DNA contained within each cell nucleus of a eukaryotic organism. It encodes for the majority of the genome in eukaryotes, with mitochondrial DNA and plastid DNA coding for the rest. I ...

s suggest the following relationships of living ''Panthera'' species: The extinct European jaguar (''Panthera gombaszogensis''), was probably closely related to the modern jaguar. The first fossil remains were excavated in

Olivola Olivola ( pms, Aulìvola) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Alessandria in the Italian region Piedmont, about east of Turin and about northwest of Alessandria. Olivola borders the municipalities of Casorzo, Frassinello Monferrat ...

, in Italy, and date to . Fossil remains found in South Africa that appear to belong within the ''Panthera'' lineage date to about .

Classification

During the 19th and 20th centuries, various explorers and staff of

natural history museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...

s suggested numerous subspecies, or at times called "races", for all ''Panthera'' species. The taxonomist Reginald Innes Pocock reviewed skins and skulls in the zoological collection of the

Natural History Museum, London The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum an ...

, and grouped subspecies described, thus shortening the lists considerably. Since the mid-1980s, several ''Panthera'' species became subjects of

genetic research Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wo ...

, mostly using blood samples of captive individuals. Study results indicate that many of the lion and leopard subspecies are questionable because of insufficient genetic distinction between them. Subsequently, it was proposed to group all African leopard populations to ''P. p. pardus'' and retain eight subspecific names for Asian leopard populations. Based on

, it was suggested to group all living sub-Saharan lion populations into ''P. l. leo''. Results of

phylogeographic Phylogeography is the study of the historical processes that may be responsible for the past to present geographic distributions of genealogical lineages. This is accomplished by considering the geographic distribution of individuals in light of ge ...

studies indicate that the

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

ern and

Central Africa Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo ...

n lion populations are more closely related to those in India and form a different clade than lion populations in Southern and East Africa; southeastern Ethiopia is an admixture region between North African and East African lion populations. Black panthers do not form a distinct species, but are melanistic specimens of the genus, most often encountered in the leopard and jaguar.

Contemporary species

The following list of the genus ''Panthera'' is based on the taxonomic assessment in ''

Mammal Species of the World ''Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference'' is a standard reference work in mammalogy giving descriptions and bibliographic data for the known species of mammals. It is now in its third edition, published in late 2005, ...

'' and reflects the

taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

revised in 2017 by the Cat Classification Task Force of the Cat Specialist Group:

Extinct species and subspecies

Other, now invalid, species have also been described, such as ''Panthera crassidens'' from South Africa, which was later found to be based on a mixture of leopard and cheetah fossils.

Phylogeny

The

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to ...

below follows Mazák, Christiansen and Kitchener (2011). In 2018, results of a

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

study on living and

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

cats were published. This study was based on the morphological diversity of the

mandible In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movable bone ...

s of

saber-toothed cat Machairodontinae is an extinct subfamily of carnivoran mammals of the family Felidae (true cats). They were found in Asia, Africa, North America, South America, and Europe from the Miocene to the Pleistocene, living from about 16 million ...

s, their speciation and extinction rates. The generated cladogram indicates a different relation of the ''Panthera'' species, as shown below:

References

External links

* * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q127960 Mammal genera Extant Miocene first appearances Taxa named by Lorenz Oken Taxa described in 1816