About Leopards and Black Panthers
Leopards and black panthers live in Africa and Southern Asia. The name leopard indicates that the ancients thought that the spotted cat was a cross between a lion and a black panther, which was then called a “pard”. More recently, people thought that leopards and black panthers were separate species, but zoologists have established that the black panther is simply a color variation of the leopard, like yellow and black Labrador retrievers. To compound the naming problems, “panther” is also used in the Americas for the cougar / mountain lion / puma, who one would think already had enough names.