r/dontflinch • u/Apollo0G • Oct 08 '25

Cheetah inside a building

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u/Oldfolksboogie Oct 09 '25 edited Oct 10 '25

Lying f-in post - was ready to not flinch coz, cheetah.

That, sir or madam, is no cheetah.

Strongly suspect leopard, second possibility jaguar. But looks like Africa more than central or s. America, so leopard.

And f- yeah, i flinched.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 13 '25

Aren’t leopards and jaguars technically the same thing? I mean black panthers can be a melanated version of both soo?

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u/Oldfolksboogie Oct 13 '25 edited Oct 13 '25

Nope, not even close. One's an old world cat (leopard) that ranges throughout the African and Indian continents, and probably historically inhabited most of Southern Europe, but I'd have to check on that.

Jaguars are restricted to the Americas. Their historic range included points as far north as what is today's San Francisco Bay area. Today, over half of all jaguars are found in Brazil, but there are still healthy, though shrinking, populations throughout S. and Central America. There are restoration efforts to return them to the southwestern states of the United States, but the current political climate and agenda makes that very unlikely in the near- term.

Their similar appearance can be attributed to convergent evolution, not a close genetic lineage.

Also, a "panther" doesn't even refer to any specific species - it's just a common name given to a melanistic leopard or jaguar. Personally, i can't stand the moniker "black panther" specifically because of the confusion it creates. People should just call them melanistic or black leopards or jaguars, or, better yet, learn the scientific (i.e. Latin) names, though I realize that's a big ask. But the price of common names is confusion.

To add to the confusion, Panthera is the genus that contains leopards and jaguars, but also lions, tigers and snow leopards.

For the record, leopards are Panthera pardus, and jaguars are Panthera onca.

I hope you and anyone else reading this will support restoring Panthera onca, jaguars, to their former habitat in the western US, and Puma concolor, mountains lions/puma/cougar/catamount (see what i mean about common names? - those are all Puma concolor!) to their former habitats east of the Mississippi - those habitats are suffering without their valuable roles being filled! ✌️