The Black Panther is not a real animal. Did you know that the Black Panther is not a real animal?
Ever since we were children, we have been taught that the Black Panther or simply the panther is one of the big cats. We have seen them in tales like the Jungle book where one of the lead characters, Bagheera, is in fact a panther to the more recent superhero comics and films, where the African protagonist is named after this illusive black cat. But this is not entirely true.
Panthers are not a separate species of cats at all. In fact, they are either leopards, jaguars or cougars (depending on which part of the world you see them in) that are suffering from melanism. Melanism is a type of genetic anomaly in which the skin contains an abnormally high amount of melanin, the pigment that gives our skin our colour. When exposed to prolonged sunlight, Melanin darkens to protect us from the harsh UV rays and that’s why we get tanned. The more melanin you have, the darker your skin is and vice versa. Owing to their look, the “black cats” so to speak were renamed with Panthera as a prefix. Like, Panthera Pardus for the African Leopard and Panthera Onca for the jaguar found in America. The generic name, Panthera, for all such black cats thus became Panther.
Due to this high level of pigmentation, certain cats like the leopard and the jaguar look completely black but if examined closely, these “panthers” still retain their signature spots and patterns. It’s just that we can’t see them because they blend into the dark skin.
Now you know the secret behind why black panthers are so hard to find… because they do not exist!
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