IMPORTANT KING

Panthera is a genus within the family Felidae, and one of two extant genera in the subfamily Pantherinae. It contains the largest living members of the cat family. There are five living species: the jaguar, leopard, lion, snow leopard and tiger, as well as a number of extinct species, including the cave lion and American lion.

Panthera
Temporal range: Pliocene–Present[1]
PreꞒꞒOSDCPTJKPgN

From top to bottom: tiger, lion, jaguar, leopard, snow leopard
Scientific classificationEdit this classification
Domain:
Eukaryota
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Mammalia
Order:
Carnivora
Suborder:
Feliformia
Family:
Felidae
Subfamily:
Pantherinae
Genus:
Panthera
Oken, 1816[2]
Type species
Felis pardus
(= Panthera pardus)
Linnaeus, 1758[2]
Species
†Panthera atrox (Leidy, 1853)
†Panthera balamoides Stinnesbeck et al., 2019
†Panthera blytheae Tseng et al., 2014
†Panthera dhokpathanensis Bakr, 1986
†Panthera fossilis (Reichenau, 1906)
†Panthera gombaszoegensis (Kretzoi, 1938)
Panthera leo (Linnaeus, 1758)
Panthera onca (Linnaeus, 1758)
†Panthera palaeosinensis (Zdansky, 1924)
Panthera pardus (Linnaeus, 1758)
†Panthera principialis Hemmer, 2023
†Panthera shawi (Broom, 1948)
†Panthera spelaea (Goldfuss, 1810)
Panthera tigris (Linnaeus, 1758)
Panthera uncia (Schreber, 1775)
†Panthera youngi Pei, 1934
†Panthera zdanskyi Mazák, Christiansen & Kitchener, 2011
Synonyms[2]
About 10
Etymology
edit
The word panther derives from classical Latin panthēra, itself from the ancient Greek pánthēr (πάνθηρ).[3]

Characteristics
edit
In Panthera species, the dorsal profile of the skull is flattish or evenly convex. The frontal interorbital area is not noticeably elevated, and the area behind the elevation is less steeply sloped. The basic cranial 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 convexly rounded chin is sloping.[4] All Panthera species have an incompletely ossified hyoid bone and a specially adapted larynx with large vocal folds covered in a fibro-elastic pad; these characteristics enable them to roar. Only the snow leopard cannot roar, as it has shorter vocal folds of 9 mm (0.35 in) that provide a lower resistance to airflow; it was therefore proposed to be retained in the genus Uncia.[5] Panthera species can prusten, 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.[6]

Evolution
edit
The geographic origin of the Panthera is most likely northern Central Asia. Panthera blytheae, possibly the oldest known Panthera species, is similar in skull features to the snow leopard,[7] though its taxonomic placement has been disputed by other researchers who suggest that the species likely belongs to a different genus.[8][9] The tiger, snow leopard, and clouded leopard genetic lineages dispersed in Southeast Asia during the Miocene.[7] Genetic studies indicate that the pantherine cats diverged from the subfamily Felinae between six and ten million years ago.[10] The genus Neofelis is sister to Panthera.[10][11][12][13] The clouded leopard appears to have diverged about 8.66 million years ago. Panthera diverged from other cat species about 11.3 million years ago and then evolved into the species tiger about 6.55 million years ago, snow leopard about 4.63 million years ago and leopard about 4.35 million years ago. Mitochondrial sequence data from fossils suggest that the American lion (P. atrox) is a sister lineage to Panthera spelaea (the Eurasian cave or steppe lion) that diverged about 0.34 million years ago, and that both P. atrox and P. spelaea are most closely related to lions among living Panthera species.[14] The snow leopard is nested within Panthera and is the sister species of the tiger.[15]

Results of a 2016 study based on analysis of biparental nuclear genomes suggest the following relationships of living Panthera species:[16]

The extinct species Panthera gombaszoegensis, was probably closely related to the modern jaguar. The first fossil remains were excavated in Olivola, in Italy, and date to 1.6 million years ago.[17] Fossil remains found in South Africa that appear to belong within the Panthera lineage date to about 2 to 3.8 million years ago.[18]