Melanism can be an advantageous evolutionary process. Panther facts reveal that darker members of a species are frequently more disguised and so more likely to survive and reproduce. This is especially true in some environmental environments, such as deep woodland areas with minimal light, where melanism is more widespread. Melanism is thus passed on by a dominant gene in Panthera onca, the kind of panther derived from the jaguar species. This implies that although black jaguars can have either black or spotted offspring, normal jaguars can only have spotted cubs.