CARL WRITES: Andalucia Panther

Read the original story here.

This is no panther. The photo published in the The Olive Press article – New Picture of Black Panther Re-ignites Search in Sleepy Village in Spain’s Andalucia, by Laurence Dollimore – unfortunately doesn’t show anything more than a large domestic cat. However, we should bear in mind for future reference that Ventas de Huelma, where the picture was taken, and where there have been further reports, is approximately only 100 miles south-east (as the crow flies, or as the cat meanders!) of the nearest Iberian lynx sub-population (Lynx pardinus) near Cordoba; and even though [this time] we can be almost certain that the cat photographed is a just a very robust domestic of the species F. catus (melanistic individuals can be larger than normal due to the influence of a pleiotropic gene triggering two or more seemingly unrelated phenotypic traits, which, in this case, can cause not only black pelage, but also a larger than average body-size), it is not beyond the realm of possibility that some of the remaining Iberian lynxes could on occasion venture this far south in search of suitable habitats. 

But Iberian lynx aren't black I hear you cry! Genetic drift (limited gene flow) can, and does, cause recessive alleles to be recurrently expressed, and the non-agouti allele, which is apparently the gene which triggers melanism in the bobcat (lynx rufus - the only member of the Lynx genus known to occasionally display melanism), is of course recessive. It might therefore be theoretically possible that other rare lynx populations, other than the already mentioned L. rufus, might also, albeit very rarely, produce this mutation unnoticed. By the turn of the 21st century, the Iberian lynx was on the verge of extinction, as only about 100 individuals survived in two isolated sub-populations in Andalusia. Conservation measures have been implemented since 2002 which included improving habitat, restocking of rabbits, translocating, re-introducing and monitoring Iberian lynx. By 2012, the population had increased to 326 individuals and is now somewhere around 400. 

Lynx pardinus is therefore one of the world’s rarest felids, and one still considered to be surviving in a genetic “bottleneck” situation. If any lynx species other than the bobcat is likely to start producing random black variants, L. pardinus, in my opinion, is probably going to be it! 

This is all, however, irrelevant this time, as the cat photographed above is non other than a big (meaning a robust) black domestic cat. That being said, if this mutation proved beneficial in countries with little or no large apex predators, whether naturally like New Zealand, or because of the desertification of the landscape/prolonged hunting, like Australia, and dare I say, Great Britain, might these large domestics begin to fill the vacant ecological niches once occupied by species now absent from the country’s respective fauna – it’s free for the taking, and evolution is a dynamic process! 

This is obviously entirely subjective, but in my opinion at least, it’s a fascinating thought to bear in mind. This would also explain many of the blurry photographs we get each year of domestic cats where the observer has been adamant that what he or she observed was much larger than the average F. catus. 

It might make up a percentage of ABC reports at least.