The Difference between Jaguars, Leopards, and Panthers

Let's look at the difference between some of the big cats that most people don't know or understand.

Photo Credit: 5Factum

Jaguars, Panthers, and Leopards are commonly known as big cats and belong to the Panthera genus. Genus is a group of animals with similar characteristics. Tigers and Lions are a part of this group as well.

Jaguars and leopards being physically alike can confound even those familiar with them when attempting to tell them apart. Panthers are easy to identify because of their black coat. Often mistaken for a separate species, their colour comes from the excess melanin in their bodies. They have rosettes too, just like the other cats, which are flower-like markings, but they are nearly invisible due to their black fur coats. Both jaguars and leopards are known to be good swimmers.

Jaguars:

The jaguar is the only one of the big cats that can be found in the Americas. After lions and tigers, the jaguar is the third-largest cat. Jaguars are heavier, larger, and sturdier compared to leopards. The rosettes, which are the markings on its coat are more pronounced, more spread out and tend to have black dots at their centre. These rosettes are excellent camouflage as they help avoid predators while jaguars move through the forest’s foliage.

According to National Geographic, jaguars exhibit the levels of arrogance reserved for lions. These powerful cats were even elevated to the status of gods in ancient South American cultures. Representations of the jaguar turn up in the art and archaeology of pre-Columbian cultures.

Jaguars consume anything they can catch, including deer, crocodiles, snakes, monkeys, deer, sloths, turtles, frogs and toads, and fish. Jaguars are widespread in South and Central America, preferring wet lowland habitats, swampy savannas, and tropical rain forests. Their favourite habitats are tropical and subtropical forests, the loss of which has marked Jaguars as a species under threat. 

Leopards:

The leopard has the distinction of being the smallest of the four big cats. The leopard’s choice of habitat is mainly sub-Saharan Africa. They can also be spotted in South Asia (India, China, Malaysia, and Indonesia).

Compared to other big cats, leopards have a long body and short legs, with a large skull and powerful jaws. They are physically smaller and weigh less. Leopards also have smaller, less complex rosettes that are usually concentrated closer together.

Leopards feed on a wide range of prey such as jackals, antelopes, gazelles, monkeys, wildebeest, and more. They also are comfortable in almost any habitat, including deserts, rainforests, woodlands, savannas, mountains, and swamps.

Panthers:

Panthers are not a unique species by themselves, but an umbrella term covering any big cat having a black coat. Panthers are the melanistic colour variant and a subset of the Panthera genus, including jaguars and leopards. The most common panthers are the black-coloured leopard in Asia and Africa (Panthera pardus) and the black jaguar in the Americas (Panthera onca). They are solitary by nature and only interact with other panthers during the mating season. 

A panther’s diet is mostly made up of deer, impala, gazelles, antelope, warthogs, and other small to medium-sized herbivores. Panthers are also known to prey on monkeys, baboons, and birds, and to feast on frogs and fish as well.

Panthers can commonly be found inhabiting tropical and deciduous forests. Their other favoured habitats include marshes, swamplands, and grasslands, and hostile locations such as deserts and mountains.

Conclusion:

Loss of habitat, deforestation and fragmented forests box the cats into smaller forest patches. Deforestation impedes their movements and prevents them from finding new mates. Retaliatory killings are another threat faced by the big cats. As grazing and farmlands replace forests, the predators hunt cattle leading to ranchers responding by killing them.

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