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Is the Florida Panther Really a Distinct Subspecies?

In 2000, four geneticists working at the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland, published an article in the Journal of Heredity entitled "Genomic Ancestry of the American Puma." For their study, they collected DNA samples from 315 pumas from various parts of pumas' extensive range, from the Yukon to Patagonia, and subjected them to genetic and phylogenetic analyses. For the last 70 years at least, taxonomists believed there were 32 distinct puma subspecies. This investigation revealed there are only six—and places all of North America's pumas, including the Florida panther, within the same subspecies, tentatively called Puma concolor couguar.

Further, the uniformity of the mitochondrial DNA and other genetic features suggests that North America's present-day pumas descended from a small group of pumas from eastern South America. Following the late-Pleistocene extinction of perhaps 80 percent of large North American mammals, these pumas recolonized North America between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago.

Did North America's pumas die out along with cheetahs and many other cat species, only to be replaced later by South American pumas? The genetic sleuthing seems to point in that direction. If so, pumas' return from South America, where they probably arrived from North America via the Panamanian land bridge about four million years ago, is certainly a case of "what goes around comes around."

If taxonomists accept the proposal that the Florida panther no longer be considered the separate subspecies Puma concolor coryi but rather part of the now-proposed North American puma subspecies, will it still receive Endangered Species protection? Probably. The Journal of Heredity study did acknowledge the Florida panther as an isolated, inbred population with genetic features different from others, and the third draft of the Florida Panther Recovery Plan states that "although the Florida panther is a subspecies, the protection it receives under the ESA [Endangered Species Act] is the same as for all other federally listed taxa whether they are species, subspecies, or distinct population segments."

—Howard Youth

ZooGoer 35(3) 2006. Copyright 2006 Friends of the National Zoo. All rights reserved.

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