Black Panther - Jaguar

Jaguar

In jaguars, the melanism allele is dominant. Consequently, black jaguars may produce either black or spotted cubs, but a pair of spotted jaguars can only produce spotted cubs. The gene is incompletely dominant: individuals with two copies of the allele are darker (the black background color is more dense) than individuals with just one copy, whose background color may appear to be dark charcoal rather than black.

The black jaguar was considered a separate species by indigenous peoples. W H Hudson wrote

The jaguar is a beautiful creature, the ground-color of the fur a rich golden-red tan, abundantly marked with black rings, enclosing one or two small spots within. This is the typical coloring, and it varies little in the temperate regions; in the hot region the Indians recognise three strongly marked varieties, which they regard as distinct species – the one described; the smaller jaguar, less aquatic in his habits and marked with spots, not rings; and, thirdly, the black variety. They scout the notion that their terrible "black tiger" is a mere melanic variation, like the black leopard of the Old World and the wild black rabbit. They regard it as wholly distinct, and affirm that it is larger and much more dangerous than the spotted jaguar; that they recognise it by its cry; that it belongs to the terra firma rather than to the water-side; finally, that black pairs with black, and that the cubs are invariably black. Nevertheless, naturalists have been obliged to make it specifically one with Felis onca, the familiar spotted jaguar, since, when stripped of its hide, it is found to be anatomically as much like that beast as the black is like the spotted leopard.

A black jaguar named "Diablo" was inadvertently crossed with a lioness named "Lola" at the Bear Creek Wildlife Sanctuary in Barrie, Canada. The offspring were a charcoal black jaglion female and a tan-colored, spotted jaglion male. It therefore appears that the jaguar melanism gene is also dominant over normal lion coloration (the black jaguar sire was presumably carrying the black on only one allele). In preserved, stuffed specimens, black leopards often fade to a rusty color but black jaguars fade to a chocolate brown color.