black animals
The term 'Black Animals' covers all animals having black fur, feathers, or just a black skin colour that is visible. There are many animals which can have a black fur, including cats, dogs and horses (some breeds only have black animals), jaguars, leopards, wolves, crows, ravens and many more.
black cats
A black cat is a felid whose fur is uniformly black. It is not a particular breed of cat and may be mixed or of a specific breed. The all-black pigmentation is equally prevalent in both male and female cats. The black color is of obvious benefit to a cat hunting at night.They can camouflage in the darkness of the night. In Western history, black cats have often been looked upon as a symbol of evil omens: in other cultures they are considered to be good omens. Black cats have been found to have lower odds of adoption in American shelters compared to other colors (except brown). Read more!
black leopards
Melanistic leopards are the most common form of black panther in captivity and they have been selectively bred for decades in the zoo and exotic pet trades. Skin color is a mixture of blue, black, gray, and purple with rosettes.
Black leopards are reported from most densely forested areas in southwestern China, Myanmar, Assam and Nepal, from Travancore and other parts of southern India and are said to be common in Java and the southern part of the Malay Peninsula where they may be more numerous than spotted leopards. They are less common in tropical Africa, but have been reported from Ethiopia (formerly Abyssinia), from the forests of Mount Kenya and from the Aberdares. One was recorded by Peter Turnbull-Kemp in the equatorial forest of Cameroon.
It is a myth that black leopards are often rejected by their mothers at an early age because of their color. In actuality, poor temperament has been bred into the captive strains as a side-effect of inbreeding and it is this poor temperament that leads to problems of maternal care in captivity. According to Funk and Wagnalls' Wildlife Encyclopedia, captive black leopards are less fertile than normal leopards, with average litter sizes of 1.8 and 2.1, respectively. This is likely due to inbreeding depression.
In the early 1980s, the Glasgow Zoo, in Scotland, acquired a 10 year old black leopard, nicknamed the Cobweb Panther, from the Dublin Zoo in Ireland. She was exhibited for several years before being moved to the Madrid Zoo, in Spain. This leopard had a uniformly black coat profusely sprinkled with white hairs as though draped with spider webs. The condition appeared to be vitiligo; as she aged, the white became more extensive. Since then, other "Cobweb Panthers" have been reported and photographed in zoos. Read more!
black jaguars
In jaguars, the melanism allele is dominant. Consequently, black jaguars can produce black or spotted cubs, but a pair of spotted jaguars will only produce spotted cubs. This is in contrast to the leopards wherein the mutation is recessive; spotted leopards can produce black cubs if both parents carry the recessive allele. Black leopards always breed true when mated together. In preserved, stuffed specimens, black leopards often fade to a rusty color but black jaguars fade to chocolate brown. The black jaguar was considered a separate species by indigenous peoples.
The gene is incompletely dominant. Individuals with two copies of the gene are darker (the black background colour is more dense) than individuals with just one copy whose background colour may appear to be dark charcoal rather than black.
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). Read more!