Felidae is the family of mammals in the order Carnivora colloquially referred to as cats. A member of this family is also called a felid.
The jaguar is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus Panthera that is native to the Americas. With a body length of up to 1.85 m and a weight of up to 158 kg (348 lb), it is the biggest cat species in the Americas and the third largest in the world. Its distinctively marked coat features pale yellow to tan colored fur covered by spots that transition to rosettes on the sides, although a melanistic black coat appears in some individuals. The jaguar's powerful bite allows it to pierce the carapaces of turtles and tortoises, and to employ an unusual killing method: it bites directly through the skull of mammalian prey between the ears to deliver a fatal blow to the brain.
The tiger is a large cat and a member of the genus Panthera native to Asia. It has a powerful, muscular body with a large head and paws, a long tail and orange fur with black, mostly vertical stripes. It is traditionally classified into nine recent subspecies, though some recognise only two subspecies, mainland Asian tigers and the island tigers of the Sunda Islands.
The leopard is one of the five extant cat species in the genus Panthera. It has a pale yellowish to dark golden fur with dark spots grouped in rosettes. Its body is slender and muscular reaching a length of 92–183 cm (36–72 in) with a 66–102 cm (26–40 in) long tail and a shoulder height of 60–70 cm (24–28 in). Males typically weigh 30.9–72 kg (68–159 lb), and females 20.5–43 kg (45–95 lb).
Panthera is a genus within the family Felidae, and one of two extant genera in the subfamily Pantherinae. It contains the largest living members of the cat family. There are five living species: the jaguar, leopard, lion, snow leopard and tiger, as well as a number of extinct species, including the cave lion and American lion.
Acinonyx is a genus within the Felidae family. The only living species of the genus, the cheetah, lives in open grasslands of Africa and Asia.
The term "big cat" is typically used to refer to any of the five living members of the genus Panthera, namely the tiger, lion, jaguar, leopard, and snow leopard, as well as the non-pantherine cheetah and cougar.
The Pantherinae is a subfamily of the Felidae; it was named and first described by Reginald Innes Pocock in 1917 as only including the Panthera species, but later also came to include the clouded leopards. The Pantherinae genetically diverged from a common ancestor between 9.32 to 4.47 million years ago and 10.67 to 3.76 million years ago.
Megantereon is an extinct genus of prehistoric machairodontine saber-toothed cat that lived in Eurasia, Africa and possibly North America from the late Pliocene to the Middle Pleistocene. It is a member of the tribe Smilodontini, and closely related to and possibly the ancestor of the famous American sabertooth Smilodon. In comparison to Smilodon it was somewhat smaller, around the size of a jaguar, though it is thought to have had a similar hunting strategy as an ambush predator.
Panthera gombaszoegensis, also known as the European jaguar, is a Panthera species that lived from about 2.0 to 0.35 million years ago in Europe, as well as likely elsewhere in Eurasia. The first fossils were excavated in 1938 in Gombasek Cave, Slovakia. P. gombaszoegensis was a medium-large sized species that formed an important part of the European carnivore guild for a period of over a million years. Many authors have posited that it is the ancestor of the American jaguar, with some authors considering it the subspecies Panthera onca gombaszoegensis, though the close relationship between the two species has been questioned by some authors.
Panthera palaeosinensis was an early Pleistocene species from northern China. It is often incorrectly referenced as the ancestor of the tiger, Panthera tigris, although it shares features with all living large cats. Recent studies place it close to the base of the genus Panthera.
Panthera fossilis is an extinct species of cat belonging to the genus Panthera, known from remains found in Eurasia spanning the Middle Pleistocene and possibly into the Early Pleistocene.
The snow leopard is a species of large cat in the genus Panthera of the family Felidae. The species is native to the mountain ranges of Central and South Asia. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because the global population is estimated to number fewer than 10,000 mature individuals and is expected to decline about 10% by 2040. It is mainly threatened by poaching and habitat destruction following infrastructural developments. It inhabits alpine and subalpine zones at elevations of 3,000–4,500 m (9,800–14,800 ft), ranging from eastern Afghanistan, the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau to southern Siberia, Mongolia and western China. In the northern part of its range, it also lives at lower elevations.
Palaeopanthera is an extinct genus of pantherine felid which lived during the Late Miocene to Early Pliocene of Asia. It contains two species, P. blytheae and P. pamiri, which were initially suggested as members of the genera Panthera and Felis respectively, but subsequent studies have placed both species to be separate from their original generic assignment.
Velizar Simeonovski is a wildlife artist and zoologist from Bulgaria who is living and working in the United States. His main interest is the paleoart, the scientific illustration and artistic reconstruction of extinct species and the visualization of primeval landscapes. Simeonovski uses computer programs to create his drawings. He is married and has two sons. Since 2003, he works for the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.
Sivapanthera is a prehistoric genus of felid described by Kretzoi in 1929. Species of Sivapanthera are closely related to the modern cheetah but differ from modern cheetahs by having relatively longer brain cases, flatter foreheads, narrower nostrils and larger teeth. In many ways, skulls of Sivapanthera show similarity to that of the puma, or even those of Panthera. Scholars differ on the validity of this genus, while some think that it should be treated as a distinct genus, others think that its members should be treated as members of the Acinonyx genus, or even as subspecies of Acinonyx pardinensis.
Panthera shawi is an extinct prehistoric cat, of which a single canine tooth was excavated in Sterkfontein cave in South Africa by Robert Broom in the 1940s. It is thought to be one of the oldest known Panthera species in Africa.
Panthera uncia pyrenaica, or Panthera pyrenaica, is an extinct pantherine felid that lived during the Middle Pleistocene in southern France. This taxon was initially suggested to be an European paleosubspecies of the modern snow leopard, but subsequently it has been assigned as a separate species within the genus Panthera.
Panthera principialis is an extinct species in big cat genus Panthera described in 2023 based on fragmentary Pliocene-aged fossils from Laetoli, Tanzania. As the species was the oldest known Panthera species at the time, it was given the specific epithet "principialis", from the Latin word meaning "initial, original, in the beginning".
Puma incurva is an extinct species in genus Puma. It was described based on fossils from the Early Pleistocene-aged Swartkrans site in South Africa.
