Comparing Cats: A Discussion of Similarities & Differences

[Balam]

(06-25-2021, 10:22 PM)Luipaard Wrote: Leopards do not have 'completely different' skulls compared to jaguars. At all. At equal weights the leopard will have a longer skull and the jaguar skull will be wider. Despite this they completely overlap in length and width. The major difference will indeed be the forehead where the leopard has a convex nasal profile and the jaguar a concave nasal profile. 

Lateral view of a leopard skull and a jaguar skull:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Source: What is a Snow Leopard? Taxonomy, Morphology, and Phylogeny

Again I'm not seeing two entirely different skulls, just a bigger version of the other, similar to what you would see if you would compare let's say a lion skull to a jaguar skull.

Moving on to the two black panthers; based on what is Shazam, the leopard 80kg? First of all he isn't even close in size of Diablo Guapo, the jaguar. He looks as big because he's standing on a sand bank. These are your own words, you said this yourself on a different forum. Shazam looks like a 60kg-65kg male, really nothing special to be honest.

Quote:Leopards do not have 'completely different' skulls compared to jaguars. At all. At equal weights the leopard will have a longer skull and the jaguar skull will be wider. Despite this they completely overlap in length and width. The major difference will indeed be the forehead where the leopard has a convex nasal profile and the jaguar a concave nasal profile. 

You posted this same study on another forum as if it supported your claims.

1. Leopards have completely different skulls, the excerpt from Mauricio Anton clearly highlighted these differences, you wanting them to be the same will not alter this fact.
2. They don't "completely overlap in length and width", jaguars completely outclass leopards in both regards at maximum levels because they are much larger cats at maximums and no population of leopards has proportions in skull length and width that match that of any jaguar population. The largest Persian leopard skull is the same length as the largest Mexican jaguars skull and yet it is narrower in breadth. Not to mention no leopard has ever been recorded having a skull the same size as jaguars of the largest populations, the outliers usually reach 280-288 mm in length and are a far cry away in width, and yet those are outliers vs a population average. Jaguars reach 324 mm in length and surpass 200 mm in length for the largest skulls.
3. The major differences are not only the forehead but the proportions in width and breadth, the height of the skull, and jaguars also have relatively larger lower canines, smaller p3, and shorter m1, according to Seymour (Panthera onca, 1989). 

Quote:Again I'm not seeing two entirely different skulls, just a bigger version of the other, similar to what you would see if you would compare let's say a lion skull to a jaguar skull.

You will see what suits your biases, because those skulls look completely different to anyone that sees them from an objective point of view, and they would look even more opposite when an overview from above the two is given where the width of the skulls becomes apparent. I know you're fond of "photographic evidence" but you cannot dismiss mathematical and empirical data because it doesn't suit you, your subjective interpretations will never trump the objective data, and the same could be said between jaguar and lion skulls, completely different.

Quote:Moving on to the two black panthers; based on what is Shazam, the leopard 80kg? First of all he isn't even close in size of Diablo Guapo, the jaguar. He looks as big because he's standing on a sand bank. These are your own words, you said this yourself on a different forum. Shazam looks like a 60kg-65kg male, really nothing special to be honest.

His body size is close, the skull size difference is what makes Diablo appear much larger, but I will confirm the leopard weight since visual interpretations are not always accurate. Btw 60-65 kg is higher than the average weight of an Indian or Sri Lankan leopard and about the same as the average for a Persian leopard, since you like to speak of 100 kg being the benchmark to go by Pantanal jaguars, then that same benchmark is applied to leopards based on scientific publicized averages. Reply