It turns out that many of us are mistaken on even the most fundamental panther facts. We have a tendency to believe that a panther is a whole other species of the huge animal. However, depending on where you live, when we talk about panther information, we typically mean jaguar or leopard facts. This is due to the fact that a panther is characterised as a melanistic colour variety of other Panthera genus species, which includes tigers, lions, jaguars, and leopards. Melanism is the formation of melanin, a dark-colored pigment in the skin, and this colour variety typically indicates that the cat is black or dark brown.