BLACK PANTHER

BLACK PANTHER


A Black Panther is the melanistic colour variant of any Panthera, particularly of the Leopard in Asia and Africa and the Jaguar in both north and south Americas. Melanism in the jaguar is conferred by a dominant allele and in the leopard by a recessive allele. Melanistic and non-melanistic animals can be littermates. It is thought that melanism confers a selective advantage under certain conditions since it is more common in regions of dense forest, where light levels are lower. Preliminary studies also suggest that melanism might be linked to beneficial mutations in the immune system.

Frequency of melanism appears to be approximately 11% over the Leopard's range. Data on the distribution of Leopard populations indicates that melanism occurs in five subspecies in the wild - Javan Leopard, African Leopard, Indian Leopard, Indo-Chinese Leopard and Sri Lankan Leopard.

Black Leopards are commonly found in the equatorial rainforest of the Malay Peninsula and the tropical rainforest on the slopes of some African mountains such as Mount Kenya. Melanistic leopards are very common in Java and the densely forested areas in south-western China, Myanmar, Nepal. In India, in Assam, Travancore and some parts of southern India they are more numerous than the general Spotted Leopards.


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