Re: LAST ONE ON PURRING

["tons" <tons@netside.com>]

Hi,

Well, all this is certainly up in the air right now.  It may take some time
before shaking the felid family tree stops and everyone is happy with what
shakes out.  The term big cats is a familiar term reserved for leopard,
lion, tiger, cheetah, puma, and jaguar.  It is not a phylogenetic term in
any sense.  It qualifies the "big" extant cats vs all the rest.

Some want to put cheetah and puma in their own separate classification
outside Panthera.  Let's see what the big boys do over the next few years. 
It will be interesting. 

I resolve every few months never to post via memory as well, but I did
qualify I was not certain about cheetah purring.  I'll get back to you via
private email. 

Back to lurking.

Michael Teuton

----------
> From: darren.naish@port.ac.uk
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: LAST ONE ON PURRING
> Date: Wednesday, March 11, 1998 7:26 AM
> 
> Those of you saying that certain large cats, like cheetah, cannot 
> purr, are incorrect. They can and do purr.
> 
> Let's bring some of you up to speed on felid phylogeny.. 'big cats' 
> in the traditional sense are not a monophyletic group, as vast 
> amounts of immunological, molecular, behavioural and morphological 
> data indicates that cheetah (_Acinonyx_) are most closely related to 
> pumas (_Puma_).
<snip>