Panthers just happen to be my favorite
animal, so I thought it would be appropriate for me to provide more information than just
Webster 1912's description. Most of the information I could find on panthers was only about
Florida Panthers (not the
hockey variety though).
Most of the information here is a summary I made from information which is freely available from from the Florida Panther Society at http://www.atlantic.net/~oldfla/panther/panther.html
Panthers are related to leopards and are found in South Florida. Their paws are smaller & legs slightly longer than its cousins. Panthers have shorter hair, a crooked tail, and a whorl of hair in the middle of its back. Color of the coat varies from a rusty buff to fawn gray, while the muzzle, chest, and underbelly is white; tail tip, back of ears, and sides of nose are dark brown or blackish.
They can run up to 35 mph but only for a few hundred yards, their preferred method of hunting is to creep up as close to their prey as possible and launch a short spring attack. When humans approach an area they will either be still, disappear, or attempt to circle behind. Panthers can live up to between 12-15 years in the wild. A male can measure 7-8 feet from the nose to tail tip and weight 100-160 lbs. Females are about 6 feet in length and weight between 60-100 lbs.
Panthers are most active at dusk and dawn, they can travel 15-20 miles a day, often moving in a zig-zag pattern, though they tend to rest during the daytime, travel & hunt during the cooler hours of the night. Panthers can swim and will cross wide bodies of water. They have a keen sense of smell and a field of vision of 130 degrees, they have excellent depth perception but lack the panoramic view that deer have.
Panthers are primarily solitary animals, they do not mate for life or live in prides but they do have a social structure. Each animal has a home range or territory which it maintains and hunts within. These ranges will tend to overlap with potential mates. Males will not tolerate other males and will fight which can be fatal. A male's home range is more extensive covering of 250 sq. miles, increasing mating potential. But females are more tolerant of each other and have a range of 70 - 200 sq. miles.
Panthers live in upper dry land & wetland areas. Dry - hardwood hammock, pine flatwoods, saw palmetto & cabbage palm thickets. Wet - cypress forest, thicket swamps & freshwater marsh. Palmetto & drier scrub areas are often used for denning and day beds.
Panthers eat white-tail deer, feral hogs, raccoons, armadillos, small alligators, other small rodents and fowl. Deer or hog are the preferred prey and may be taken every 7 to 10 days, the diet then being supplemented with smaller prey.
Panthers are quickly becoming extinct and are on the endangered species list. Their historic range included eastern Texas or western Louisiana and the lower Mississippi River valley east through the Southeastern States in general (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and parts of Tennessee and South Carolina). Even though numerous sighting reports continue to surface annually throughout its historic range, it is unlikely that viable populations of the Florida panther presently occur outside Florida.