Big Cats Species List

There are 38 species of cats on the planet.

Big cats species list. Only the tiger is bigger. Due to new DNA evidence the cat family tree has changed considerably over the last decade. Big cat species that have a wide range and live in a variety of habitats include leopards mountain lions ocelots and jaguars.

And some wild cats occupy enormous ranges geographic distribution such as the puma cougar which occupies the biggest range of any terrestrial mammal in the western hemisphere see Puma Cat Range. Tiger Panthera tigris Lion Panthera leo Jaguar Panthera onca Leopard Panthera pardus Snow leopard Panthera uncia Sunda clouded leopard Neofelis diardi Clouded leopard Neofelis nebulosa. Wild Cats of Africa.

Then there are a whole range of different types of big cats that have been bred by humans as hybrid animals leopon liger tigon and more but these have been left out of this list. No wild cats list would be complete without the lion. A list of big cats using this definition is shown below.

List by Common Name. It has well-muscled body thick limbs and broad powerful paws. Other big cats including the Siberian tiger Bengal tiger and African lion have more limited ranges and are adapted to fewer habitat types.

The javan leopard panthera pardus melas and the arabian leopard panthera pardus nimr are both critically endangered with. There is also a broader more common definition of big cats that includes cheetahs clouded leopards snow leopards and mountain lions cougars. North African leopard with possibly a handful surviving in the wild the North African leopard is one of the most threatened of the leopard subspecies.

Many of the cats have new scientific names some new species have been declared and some species have been reclassified as subspecies. 11 rows This list of largest cats shows the 10 largest extant Felidae species ordered by. Wild Cats of Africa.