Talk:Panthera

Category versus list
I've just created Category:Panthera species, which gathers all the articles on Panthera species. Does this duplicate what is done here at Panthera, or is the category useful as well? (I also created some missing redirects, and bypassed some double redirects, so the work wasn't entirely about creating the category). Carcharoth 14:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Also compare with this. Carcharoth 14:53, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

This page needs to be rewritten completely. This time with links and facts because most of this is incorrect.dnlcaissie 11:36 EST 1/FEB/2007
 * @dnlcaissie Can you be abit more concrete?--Altaileopard 09:02, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Age of Panthera
I made this edit, because this paper does not dicribe the Panthera as the most recently evolved cats, but mention older papers, which says, that the Pantherinae are the most recently evolved felid group. But as the Felinae are (According to all recent studies) a sister taxon of the Pantherinae, both groups are exactly of the same age. But that does not say anything about the genus Panthera itself.--Altaileopard 15:23, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Evolution
Ok, before someone inserts a tree again, see Talk:Jaguar before making an arbitrary choice for a specific tree. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 17:42, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Technical problems with the iw
The interwiki listing is hidden, but I don't know how to fix it.--RR&#39; 13:00, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

"Panther" etymology
the dictionary entry at  poses a different etymology for "panther." the Tiger article here links to this, claiming the greek "all hunting/beast" is folk etymology. anyone have additional sources? Metanoid (talk, email) 11:00, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It's time to correct this entry in the article. The notice is now two years old! The American Heritage Dictionary says that the etymology of the word is unknown. I will change the entry in the article if a change is not forthcoming soon. Caeruleancentaur (talk) 12:33, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. Caeruleancentaur (talk) 09:21, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Random House says the "hunting/beast" thing is bogus.Seduisant (talk) 18:11, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

παν+θήραμα = every + prey. The american heritage dictionary doesn't respect the linguistic heritage of others. I am going to expect for 15 days, then change this funny definition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.140.50.224 (talk) 18:47, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Disbanding Uncia
A few weeks ago, I implemented recent insights regarding the taxonomic position of the snow leopard. This has resulted in the disbanding of the genus Uncia, thus moving the snow leopard to the genus Panthera. These changes were quickly reverted, as the current position of the snow leopard was considered to be still uncertain. That may have been true a few weeks ago - however on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mammals there has been a discussion regarding this subject. It was more or less decided that the Handbook of the Mammals of the World is now considered to be an acceptable source for taxonomic changes (in respect to the MSW). According to this Handbook, the snow leopard should be moved from Uncia to Panthera. I think these changes should be (re-)implemented on the Panthera article. DaMatriX (talk) 19:41, 1 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Until today, the article was citing the 2006 issue of the IUCN Red List as supporting retention of Uncia. This used a 2002 assessment. It now has a newer assessment dating from 2008, which uses Panthera uncia as the title and identifies Uncia uncia as a synonym. I've updated the reference and amended the Evolution section (2nd para) accordingly. The lead section has the words "The snow leopard, Uncia uncia, which is sometimes included within Panthera ...". I haven't touched it, but does that wording properly reflect the current balance of views? --Stfg (talk) 13:58, 10 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It totally doesn't. I just finished running around reading the latest phylogenetic studies on Panthera I could find on PubMed(Davis 2010, Wei 2011), and they all switched over to P. uncia... and the snow leopard + tiger clade is very well supported.  I think the intro should just go ahead and talk about the 5 Panthera species, at most mention that snow leopards were only recently recognized to be in Panthera. I'll come back here in a few weeks, if no one has any objections I'll rewrite the intro. Blueshifter (talk) 23:59, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Panther etymology Pundareek?
Pundareek is Sanskrit for Lotus, this is a fact, one can find that online everywhere. Somebody on the net has wrongly translated it as "Tiger", and that reference is being used here on Wikipedia, how can we correct that please? The actual sanskrit word for Tiger is "Vyaghra", which is the root for the modern Hindi word for Tiger "Baagh" Lilaac (talk) 02:21, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Panthera range
The picture diplaying panthera range seems to be inconsistent with the picture showing the leopard distribution in the article on the leopard. It shows that the leopard is present but fragmented in almost all of southern Asia. /Kiewbra (talk) 19:35, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Ethiopian Lion
It was recently genetically proven, that the Ethiopian or Abyssinian Lion is a subspecies, different of any other Lion. So Wikipedia get this right, get informed, it was a study of a laboratory in the U.K., i do not know more, but it was on television in Germany. It seems like Wikipedia do not bother any mistake on their website. Fix it quickly.

PS: It is obvious that almost every species on the planet has somehow its roots in Africa, even when there are yet some fossils left to find before proof.

GL


 * Or that the Ethiopian lion is a mixture between clades of African lions, let me explain below. Leo1pard (talk) 13:57, 14 August 2017 (UTC)

Panthera combaszoe
Is this even a real animal? I cannot find any info on them in the literature, Google scholar and online except here. I am thinking of removing them and deleting their page. 4444hhhh (talk) 04:38, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Probably a typo for Panthera gombaszoegensis. Burmeister (talk) 14:17, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
 * In that case, I am gonna redirect it or delete it. I am surprised for the nine years that article has been up nobody bothered trying to fix it.--4444hhhh (talk) 21:47, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Problem in Taxobox
Genus_authority is not displaying! I think this has something to do with the entry directly above not being genus = Panthera, but I'm not sure how to fix it! SEThorpe (talk) 23:51, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Someone has now fixed the problem, but also removed without justification the type species info. I will replace it pending justification for removal ... SEThorpe (talk) 05:20, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Common names and trinomials after taxonomic revision
The revisions for lion and tiger taxonomy have introduced some inconsistencies, I would argue errors. The Cape lion does not include the Congo lion and the Javan tiger does not include the Sumatran tiger. What the revisions say is that the trinomical Panthera tigris sondaica, which was originally ascribed to the Javan tiger, is now considered to include the Javan, Bali and Sumatran tigers. The Javan tiger is still the tiger that lived on Java, the Bali and Sumatran tigers are not a type of Javan tiger; all three are Sunda tigers.

The listing is difficult as there are no clear common names assigned to the newly defined trinomials, except for the Sunda tiger. I would suggest ...


 * Sunda tiger P. t. sondaica including
 * †Javan tiger P. t. sondaica sensu stricto
 * †Bali tiger formerly P. t. balica
 * Sumatran tiger formerly P t. sumatrae

The same approach should be taken for continental tiger, north Africa/Asiatic lion and southern/eastern lions, although the common names used require consideration. An alternative would be to list the trinomical with the regions covered in parenthesis, e.g. "Panthera leo leo (lions of North Africa, West Africa and Asia), including:".  Jts1882 &#124; talk 13:52, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Great suggestion, Jts1882, to use 'sensu stricto'!! Will you change this then? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 14:18, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I've changed the tiger accordingly. However, how do we handle the lion, given Leo1pard's comment on the lion admixture across the Sahel?  Jts1882 &#124; talk 14:44, 14 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Introducing 'sensu stricto' was a brilliant idea! You may have already seen that I collated all the info about Congo lion into Central African lion and placed a redirect accordingly. This will make it far easier in future to update only one, namely latter article. Re admixture zones: Bertola et al. (2016) grouped the northern Central African pops with the Northern Group and hypothesized about the 2 admixture zones -- one in the region of southeastern Ethiopia and the other in eastern South Africa -- that this phenomenon may be due to translocations. BhagyaMani (talk) 19:04, 14 August 2017 (UTC)


 * The issue about an admixture between P. l. leo and P. l. melanochaita in places like Ethiopia, or even that places like Northeast Africa and Central Africa are home to both clades, is why I put in those notes next to formerly recognized subspecies for those areas. This document, despite being from a reputable group like the IUCN Cat Specialist Group, is too simplistic about African lions, genetically speaking. Leo1pard (talk) 08:50, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

This article is about the genus and shows the taxonomic classification of Panthera. Therefore, it is unnecessary to replicate info about admixture that is given and referenced in the various Lion articles and resp. talk pages already *multiple times*, including multiple refs to one and the same cat news special issue. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 09:36, 15 August 2017 (UTC)


 * But the document does not even say that for example, P. l. azandica was subsumed to P. l. leo, so what is the need of the specific divisions, like for P. l. azandica within P. l. leo in this article, if we are not even going to discuss the genetics related to them? Leo1pard (talk) 12:40, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Admixture of 'Leonine' and 'Melanochaitan' lions in Africa
For those who are unfamiliar with the genetics of African lions, let me start from the beginning. Geographically, there are two main types of lions: African and Asian. The Asiatic lion, today surviving in and around Gir Forest in India, has been treated as a subspecies of its own, with the taxonomic name Panthera leo persica. Within Africa, a number of subspecies were described, such as the Barbary lion (P. l. leo) of North Africa, the Senegal lion (P. l. senegalensis) of Western and Central Africa, the Congo lion (P. l. azandica) (in the northeastern part of Congo-Kinshasa, adjacent to the East African country of Uganda) in Central Africa, the Uganda lion (P. l. nyanzae) and Masai lion (P. l. massaica syn. P. l. hollisteri) in East Africa, and the Transvaal lion (P. l. krugeri) and Cape lion (P. l. melanochaitus) in Southern Africa (not to be confused with South Africa). In 2016, these guys did genetic tests, and there is something interesting here. Senegal lions in Western Africa and certain parts of Central Africa were found to be more closely related to Barbary and Asiatic lions than to lions in Eastern and Southern Africa. Thus in 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the Cat Specialist Group subsumed Asiatic, Barbary and Senegal lions to P. l. leo, and the others to P. l. melanochaita. However, if you look at this map by Berola et al. (2016), besides this and this document from the Cat Specialist Group, then you should notice that there are areas of overlap between the two clades, that is P. l. leo and P. l. melanochaita, such as Ethiopia in Northeast Africa, and Kenya in East Africa. For this reason, Central African (including in Congo-Kinshasa), Ethiopian, Masai, Somali and Ugandan lions can be treated as being genetically mixed between P. l. leo and P. l. melanochaita. Leo1pard (talk) 14:02, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Is it admixture or overlap of lions from the two subspecies? If you look at Fig 2 in Bertoli (the map), the haplotypes in each country generally fall into one of the two main branches (Figs 3 & 4), except for Ethiopia (haplotypes 12,13,14; also 9 according to Fig4). In the phylogenetic tree, haplotype 12 falls with the central African haplotypes as part of the northern branch, while haplotypes 13 and 14 fall in the northeastern subbranch of the southern branch. This would put the Somali and Masai lions in the southern group, the Congo and Nubian lions in the northern branch. The lion from the DRC that falls in haplogroup 15 is from a different part of the DRC than the area ascribed to the Congo lion (NE, land of the azande people). The Ethiopian lions are the problematic ones, even without the distinct zoo animals (Bruche 2013).
 * Addition confusion comes in the synonymising of the traditional subspecies (see Wozencraft 2005) where both massaicus and somaliensis are partly synonymised with nubica and azandicus which seems difficult to understand in terms of the geography or the results of Bertoli-2016.  Jts1882 &#124; talk 15:42, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
 * What I mean is the genetic overlap between the clades P. l. leo (let us call it the 'Leonine' clade, for the purpose of discussion) and P. l. melanochaita (let us call it the 'Melanochaitan' clade). Ethiopia is not even the only area where the Leonine and Melanochaitan clades overlap, other areas include northern Kenya and Uganda. For this reason, I would propose putting in a new bullet point, below those for the Leonine and Melanochaitan clades, to talk about lions that are mixed between the 2 clades, such as Ethiopian and Uganda lions. Leo1pard (talk) 08:50, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, an overlap/admixture and uncertain category might be the way to handle it. I'm not sure we can say the Uganda and NW Kenyan lions are an admixture, though. These lions don't seem to be part of the Bertola et al (2016) study, where the overlap in Ethiopian lions is clearly indicated. Dubach et al (2005) studied the Uganda lions and they grouped with lions form the Aberdare National Park (western Kenya), as a clade of eastern lions on the west of the rift valley. They didn't include western and central Leonine lions in that study, although Dubach at al (2011) also groups Ugandan lions in the east (with Kenyan and Somali lions). Barnett et al (2014) also group the Ugandan lions with the eastern lions, on the western side of the rift valley (map, Fig 1) and in haplogroup J (Fig 2). The rift valley split could also explain occurrence of both subspecies in Ethiopia (if distributed either side). It's a shame not all studies use all the lion samples available. It's a frustrating puzzle with a few pieces missing. On balance I think the evidence suggests Ugandan lions are eastern (Melanochaitan) lions, even if there could be some admixture with central (leonine) lions if the ranges overlap.   Jts1882 &#124; talk 14:06, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Not just frustrating, but also practically difficult. In addition, I think that we better remove bullet-points like for P. l. azandica within the part for P. l. leo, because not only does that document not directly say that P. l. azandica was subsumed to P. l. leo, the genetics are complicated. Leo1pard (talk) 14:31, 15 August 2017 (UTC)


 * In the discussion of Bertola et al 2015 (a new one to me) they compare the classical morphological subspecies (after Hemmer 1974, Nowell-Jackson-1996, Hass 2005) to their four clades. They equate nubica with the eastern clade (which would include hollisteri (SW Kenya), massaicus (SE Kenya), nyanzae (Uganda), roosevelti (Ethopian), somaliensis (Somalia) according to Hass et al 2005, after Hemmer 1974). They add that Hemmer (1974) suggested that azendica shouldn't be considered a fully differentiated lineage (due to mixing?), although it always seems to be listed as one of his eight subspecies (I can't find the original Hemmer article and it is in German even if I could). I think we can list any of those nubica subspecies as under the Melanochaitan lions, which leaves azandica'' as Leonine or uncertain.  Jts1882 &#124; talk 16:42, 15 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I recognize the title, but the work by Bertola et al. in 2016 would suggest that roosevelti and somaliensis is mixed between the Leonine and Melanochaitan clades. I have an idea, for all these articles about formerly recognized subspecies, such as Somali lion and Masai lion, we will keep their original trinoma in the lead sections or infoboxes, and mention the genetics and classifications by different authors, such as Haas et al. and the the Cat Specialist Group, after talking about their original trinoma, similar to how, for example, the article Bali tiger is |currently styled, do you agree, considering how complicated the genetics of African lions are? Leo1pard (talk) 17:21, 15 August 2017 (UTC)


 * What has the shopping mall 'trinoma' to do with taxonomy? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 19:03, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The old ssp. names are obsolete, i.e. not valid any longer. So as long as the ssp. question of the admixed pops is unresolved, they can only be assigned to species level, but not beyond. The concept of ssp. has changed so significantly in the past 100 years, that I think it ridiculous to insist on names that were given by museum curators to one or two specimen at most, on basis of just fur or mane colour.-- BhagyaMani (talk) 19:03, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * But the CSG's recognition of only 2 subspecies, the 'Leonine' and 'Melanochaitan' lions, is over-simplistic, therefore invalid in itself, based on the issue of genetics, so what is the point of using a document like this to push other trinoma aside? Leo1pard (talk) 06:25, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The idea of say, treating Senegalese and Barbary lions as a single subspecies is based on the idea that they are closely related to each other, and treating them as being a different subspecies to East African and Kalahari lions is based on the idea that they are less closely related to them, but with a lion that is mixed between the 'Leonine' and 'Melanochaitan' clades, like the Ethiopian lion, to say that African lions can be grouped to only 2 valid subspecies is like classifying a liger under either Panthera leo or Panthera tigris. Leo1pard (talk) 06:34, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

The old subspecies names are obsolete in that they are no longer considered subspecies. That doesn't mean that they are not still populations with some distinctive characteristics. The genetic studies clearly show some substructure that could have been used to describe 4-6 subspecies, but instead are now described as regional groups. Most of the scientific literature on lions consists of descriptions applied to a particular regional population of lions, usually referred to by the trinomial names. This science isn't discarded because the subspecies are no longer recognised, so it is important to determine which current subspecies the trinomials belong to or if they are admixtures. It should be added that when the lions in one country are ascribed to two subspecies or groups, it doesn't mean that they are admixtures that can't be usually be assigned primarily to one group. The Bertola et al (2015) study refers to Ethiopia1 and Ethiopia2 lions, which group with central and eastern lions, respectively, in their study. The Ethiopia1 lions come from the west of the rift valley, a barrier for lion dispersal.  Jts1882 &#124; talk 08:52, 16 August 2017 (UTC)


 * But an issue is that the CSG subsumed lions in Central Africa to P. l. leo, even though some parts of CA appear to be in the clade P. l. melanochaita, judging by the work of Bertola et al. (2016), whereas those in Eastern Africa were subsumed to P. l. melanochaita, thus making Ethiopian lions 'stuck' between two groups that are recognized by the CSG, in this sense. Leo1pard (talk) 08:52, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Which central African lions grouped with P. l. melanochaita in Bertola et al (2016)? The Ethiopian lions seem to be the only problematic ones. The rest of the central African lions span the Sahel from Nigeria to Sudan.  Jts1882 &#124; talk 14:41, 18 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Lions in parts of Congo-Kinshasa that are adjacent to Eastern or Southern African countries, such as Number 49, Haplotype 15. In addition, even western Somali lions and northern Kenyan lions are in admixture regions. Leo1pard (talk) 05:17, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

List of African lions that are unresolved or made ambiguous or potentially ambiguous by the Cat Specialist Group's proposal: Leo1pard (talk) 05:13, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

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Scientific names
Please see this. Leo1pard (talk) 10:06, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

On second thought, there is disunity amongst members of the Cat Specialist Group, as mentioned here. Leo1pard (talk) 05:36, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Type species
According to the ICZN:

So I think Felis pardus is correct.  Jts1882 &#124; talk 14:35, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, I thought so too! Thanks for confirming. --BhagyaMani (talk) 15:32, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I just read Oken (1816) again, hoping to find an explanation why he used Panthera: he referred to colocola for its whitish skin with yellow spots. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 21:26, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Mountain Lions, Puma, Jaguar, Panther...
All in America and are the same in biology. You can mate them. Lion, Tiger ...Liger. Panion...I can keep going. Stop trying to control information Wiki. You (Wiki) don't know. 172.56.82.219 (talk) 09:39, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
 * No, mountain lions are not in the same species, or even the same genus, as panthers and jaguars. Meters (talk) 09:47, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Big cat to Panthera
Big cat may be moved to the article Panthera because it commonly refers to this genus.The information will be in the section Panthera:Species.the non-Panthera Species of commonly called Big cats will have  their information on the bottom of the article. It will be told each in one paragraph in the fewest words possible to properly  explain these Species. JanZakrzewski (talk) 11:39, 18 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose: as the intro to the article Big cat quite clearly states, the colloquial term doesn't refer to this genus, it refers to a wider, non-taxonomical grouping. There is nothing to be gained by getting rid of the quality existing article Big cat, and integrating information about non-Panthera animals into the Panthera article would be confusing. There's also plenty of precedent for having separate articles for colloquial groupings of animals which do not fully align with taxonomical groups. See, for example, whale. AntiDionysius  ( talk ) 11:44, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose + agree with AntiDionysius's line of reasoning. – BhagyaMani (talk) 18:32, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose per AntiDionysius. These are different topics and shoehorning the non-Panthera species into the Panthera article makes no sense to me. Meters (talk) 21:46, 18 February 2024 (UTC):
 * Oppose: These terms are not close enough to by synonymous. - UtherSRG (talk) 00:33, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose: Not the same thing and big cat is not a common name for the genus. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 07:35, 19 February 2024 (UTC)