Central American jaguar | |
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Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Carnivora |
Family: | Felidae |
Genus: | Panthera |
Species: | P. onca |
Binomial name | |
Panthera onca (Linnaeus, 1758) |
The Central American jaguar was proposed as a subspecies of jaguar, native to Colombia and Central America, with the taxonomic name Panthera onca centralis (Mearns, 1901). In 1939, due to lack of evidence, Reginald Innes Pocock accepted that other proposed subspecies of jaguars, from the southern part of the United States to Colombia, such as Panthera onca arizonensis and Panthera onca hernandesii, and Panthera onca centralis were one subspecies, before recent tests failed to establish evidence for different subspecies of jaguar. Therefore, the name Panthera onca centralis referred to a geographic group, if not subspecies, of jaguars, from the United States and Mexico in the north, Central America in the middle, and Colombia in the south.