Do black cats come from panthers? Domestic black cats do not come from panthers. The black panther doesn’t actually exist as it is a name that is used to describe either a black leopard or a black jaguar.
Is a Black Cat a Panther?
A common question that is asked is “did black cats evolve from panthers?” Although black domestic cats aren’t closely related to what is known as a black panther, the genetics that makes a cat black are the same in big and small cats.
Any cat whether big or small needs to have the B gene present to have a solid black coat. This gene is called an Allele.
This gene has to be present in both of the cat’s parents.
For a cat to have a solid black coat a recessive (a) gene needs to be present called a non-agouti.
This non-agouti blocks the gene that would usually give the cat tabby markings and in the case of big cats, it blocks the spotted pattern but a lot of the time not completely.
I wrote a blog post on black cat genetics that you can read here…
Ghost Markings
Black cats both big and small can have the appearance of ghost-like markings and this is due to the gene that would give them spots or stripes, being suppressed.
Have you ever seen faint stripes on a black cat that are only visible in bright light from certain angles?
Our American Shorthair called Coco has stripey back legs that we have only seen properly a couple of times.
Where do domestic cats come from?
All domestic cats originate from Felis Silvestris Lybica, a wild cat from The Fertile Crescent in the Near East and the Classical Period of ancient Egypt.
When studying the DNA of the domestic cat, scientists found a common ancestor, The North African and Southwest Asian Wildcat.
Leopards were once domesticated in China but this was short-lived and there is no evidence to relate the Leopard to the common domestic cat.
With man traveling around the world by sea, rodents were a common problem and this is where the domestic cat became very useful.
Cats would often sail the seas, keeping the rodent population down and in the same process would end up on foreign shores.
This is the most likely way that cats spread around the world…
My Thoughts
Wow! Who knew that technically there is no such thing as a black panther?
I’ve been thinking about this and this discovery strengthens the nickname that black cat owners give to their pets.
We can them ‘Mini Panthers’ and ‘House Panthers’ and it seems like this description is very accurate!
The term ‘Black Panther’ is simply being used to describe a big cat with a completely black coat.
With this knowledge I think the ‘branding’ of our pets as ‘Mini Panthers’ is very fitting and great PR for black cats and let’s face it, they need all the good PR that they can get!
Do Black Cats Come From Panthers? – Summary
Do black cats come from panthers? No, black cats are descendants of Wild Cats from The Fertile Crescent in the Near East and the Classical Period of ancient Egypt.
Black cats big and small can have ghost-like markings, revealing the pattern relating to suppressed genes.
Felis Silvestris Lybica cats were domesticated and used to keep rodents at bay on ships.
They traveled the world by sea and found their way around the world creating the domestic cat as we know it.
For more black cat content check out the My Mini Panther Facebook page.
Lee Harris
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