Biology:Pumapard
A pumapard is a hybrid of a cougar and a leopard. Both male cougar with female leopard and male leopard with female cougar pairings have produced offspring. In general, these hybrids have exhibited a tendency to dwarfism.
Characteristics
History
In the late 1890s/early 1900s, two hybrids were born in Chicago, United States, followed two years later by three sets of twin cubs born at a zoo in Hamburg, Germany, from a cougar father and leopard mother. Carl Hagenbeck bred several litters of cougar × leopard hybrids in 1898 at the suggestion of a menagerie owner in Great Britain; this was possibly Lord Rothschild (as one of the hybrids is preserved in his museum) who may have heard of the two hybrid cubs bred in Chicago in 1896 and suggested that Hagenbeck reproduce the pairing.
Hagenbeck's cougar/leopard hybrids may have been inspired by a pair of leopard × cougar hybrid cubs born in Chicago on 24 April 1896 at Tattersall's indoor arena, where Ringling Brothers Circus opened its season:
"Two tiny cubs which look like young leopards were born at Tattersall's where Ringling Brothers circus is housed, yesterday (24 APR [18]96). They are not leopards, however. Their mother is a mountain lion or cougar and their father is a leopard. They take after their father decidedly and are the daintiest little members of the cat family ever born in captivity. They are the only ones of their kind, so far as known, ever born, either within the confines of a cage or anywhere else. These black and yellow youngsters were on exhibition yesterday and were admired by all who saw them. They will probably be on view the rest of the time the circus exhibits in Chicago."[1]
Helmut Hemmer reported a similar hybrid. These hybrids had cougar-like long tails and sandy or tawny coats with chestnut leopard-like markings and cougar-like cheek markings. Another was described as resembling a little gray puma with large brown rosettes.
Henry Scherren wrote:
There was, and probably is now, in the Berlin Garden and Indian leopard and puma male hybrid, purchased by Carl Hagenbeck in 1898.[2]
See also
- Felid hybrids - small cat hybrids
- Panthera hybrids - hybrids between lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars
Note
Some content of this article is reproduced from "Hybrid Big Cats". http://www.messybeast.com/genetics/hyb-pumaxleop.htm., which is licensed under the GFDL.
References
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