There are many people who like felines, if you ask them how to distinguish between the cat subfamily and the leopard subfamily? I believe that many people will tell you one of the simplest ways, that is, to see if they can roar, if they can, they are subfamily leopards, and if they can't, they are subfamily cats.
This method is applicable most of the time, but there are exceptions, such as snow leopards and clouded leopards, two animals, can not make a lion-tiger roar, but snow leopards, clouded leopards, Sunda clouded leopards are members of the leopard subfamily, so we can not say that the cat subfamily that does not roar, but conversely, it is true that the crowers are all leopard subfamily.
Clouded leopard
Modern cats evolved from the cats of the original paleo-carnivorous, and after several differentiations, they became what we see today.
Earlier has not entered the field of molecular science, people usually rely on the appearance characteristics and other reasons for the classification of species, the most typical is the cheetah, in the classical taxonomy, because the claws of the cheetah can not be indented into the toes, and other cats are inconsistent, so the cheetah is classified as a cheetah subfamily, is independent of the leopard subfamily, cat subfamily outside a subfamily.
However, with the deepening of human cognition and the entry into the molecular field, contemporary molecular systematics believes that cheetahs belong to the same lineage as mountain lions and slender-waisted cats, so the cheetah subfamily was abolished and classified as the cat subfamily Cheetah genus.
Mountain lion pedigree
See if you can roar? Earlier it was used to distinguish members of the genus Leopard from other cats, because earlier the snow leopard was considered a "monotypic animal", classified as a genus of snow leopards, indeed, as a cat living at high altitudes, the body structure is indeed different in some aspects, such as it has a relatively wide nasal cavity, so that a breath can obtain more oxygen, and it has highly developed skills to regulate breathing and blood, so that they can maintain strong physical skills in an oxygen-deficient environment.
However, after entering the molecular field, it was found that the snow leopard and the tiger were more closely related, so in the revised feline taxonomy, the snow leopard genus has been abolished, and the snow leopard has also been classified into the leopard genus, so the use of "roar" to distinguish leopard species from other cat species is no longer applicable.
snow leopard
In the latest cat taxonomy, there are only two subfamilys, namely the cat subfamily and the leopard subfamily, and the cat subfamily 12 genera and 33 species of animals cannot roar, but they can make "grunting" sounds that cannot be emitted by animals that can roar.
More than half of the 7 species of animals in the 2 genera of the leopard subfamily are able to roar, and lions have the loudest roar. Many people refer to the animals of the leopard subfamily as "big cats", and the animals of the cat subfamily as "kittens", which is also not very accurate, because although the clouded leopard has a body structure like a big cat, the actual size is like a "kitten", and the mountain lion and cheetah of the cat subfamily are usually called big cats because of their large size.
Some felines
"Lion roar wilderness, tiger roaring mountain forest" is considered a symbol of domineering, in the feline, not only tigers and lions can roar, leopards, jaguars can also roar.
Can you roar? In fact, it is structurally determined, and the reason why lions and tigers can roar is because their hyoid bones are not yet fully ossified, and their ductility and flexibility are strong.
In addition, for most animals, the structure formed by the vocal cords and the side wall of the vocal tract is a triangle, and in mathematics we have all learned that the triangle is the most stable structure, so the degree of stretch it can withstand is very low, and the species that can roar, the structure it forms is square, not so stable, but has high tensile properties.
Lion roar
Two different types of structures, naturally there will be two different sets of sound principles, the actual principle is quite complex, but we can simply understand that when the body wants to make a sound, the air will pass through the vocal channel, the hyoid bone will vibrate, the vocal cords will stretch, and the square stretch is greater, and the sound generated by the vibration will be more low.
Of course, when making sounds, the lungs are to bear a certain amount of pressure, in order to prevent the roar to bring damage to the lungs, so the lion tiger leopard, jaguar and other animals that can roar, the inside of the vocal cords are rich in fibrin and hyaluronic acid and other tissues formed, and the side of the intrinsic layer also has more collagen, elastin fibers and other tissues, so that they can make them roar when the lungs do not bear greater pressure, but also make the roar more powerful.
Tiger roar
Among the 4 animals that can roar, the lion's vocal tract is the widest, and it can accommodate more air at one time, which means that the lion's roar is the lowest and most powerful, when it roars, it can reach about 114 decibels, and the straight-line propagation distance can reach seven or eight kilometers.
What is the concept of 114 dB? In China's noise standard regulations, the third type of environmental noise standard value is 65 decibels during the day and 55 decibels at night, which is suitable for industrial areas. When people are in a sound environment of more than 110 decibels for a long time, it will cause permanent damage to hearing, which shows how powerful the "lion roar gong" is.
4 species of animals that roar
Two species of animals in the genus Leopard in the leopard subfamily Clouded Leopard cannot roar, and their hyoid bones are completely ossified. From the perspective of body structure, the clouded leopard is relatively close to the leopard, and is the oldest class in the modern cat family, especially the teeth, the gap between the premolars and the canine teeth is larger, and the proportion of canine teeth is the highest in the modern cat family, close to the extinct saber-toothed tiger prehistoric cat family, so the clouded leopard also has the reputation of "modern small saber-toothed tiger".
The classification of clouded leopards has been controversial in history, people have classified them separately into the clouded leopard subfamily according to morphological characteristics and other factors, and later with the development of the molecular field, it has been found that clouded leopards and tigers, snow leopards, etc. are all leopard pedigrees, so the previous conclusions have been overturned.
The snow leopard is the only species in the genus Leopard that does not roar, but in terms of occurrence structure, the snow leopard is more special, it is not like a member of the cat subfamily, the hyoid bone is completely ossified, and its ossification degree is between the species that can roar and cannot roar, that is, the degree of ossification is not so high, and it still maintains a high degree of flexibility.
Supposedly, such a hyoid bone structure can make a roaring sound, but due to the lack of elastic tissue and a thick fat layer in the snow leopard's vocal cords, it cannot make a lion-tiger roar.
In general, animals that can roar cannot make "grunting" sounds, animals that can make "grunting" sounds cannot make roars, and snow leopards can neither roar nor make "grunting" sounds, and its sound is somewhere between roaring and "grunting", which sounds like it is gasping for breath.
In felines, the growling and "purring" sounds are like the ends of a straight line, and they cannot appear on the same species. Sound is very important to animals, in addition to daily communication, it can also play a role in declaring sovereignty to scare off competitors.
For example, the male lion on the grassland will show his dominance over the land by frequently roaring, while the wandering male lion has no fixed territory, so the number of roars is significantly less.
Although tigers living in forests also use their roars to indicate their "lord" identity, they are significantly less frequent than the male lions on the grassland, which may be related to their lives and hunting methods, and too frequent roars will scare away many herbivores.
In reality, it is not clear whether the roar is good or the "purr" sound is good, because each has its own wonderful uses, as mentioned earlier, the big cat's roar helps to claim sovereignty, and in a new study, it shows that the kitten's "grunt" sound can make itself quiet as soon as possible, and at the same time has a certain positive effect on promoting tissue regeneration and bone healing. This may be "fish and bear paws can not have both", with a domineering roar, you can no longer have a healing "grunt" sound.
ocelot
Even now, under the influence of film, television, literature and other works, there are still many people who will be able to roar with the size of the link, think that the larger body, generally can roar, otherwise it does not match the image, and the smaller body, can only emit a cat-like "meow", but in fact, this is not the case.
For example, the mountain lion and cheetah in the cat subfamily are not small, especially the mountain lion, because of its wide range of distribution, from the Yukon Strip in North America to the Andes Mountains in South America, so its body size changes are not small.
cheetah
In general, there is a distribution of "small in the middle and large on both sides", that is, the mountain lion located near the equator is the smallest weight, and it is not uncommon for adult males to be 30-50 kg, and the more they go to the poles, the larger the mountain lion, such as the mountain lion in southern Argentina, weighing 90-100 kg is not unusual.
Mountain lions have such a weight, it is not unusual to be called a big cat, in fact, in the cat subfamily, only cheetahs and mountain lions can be called big cats, but the hyoid bones of these two animals have been completely ossified, and it is impossible to make a roaring sound, friends who have heard cheetahs in the zoo may be very clear, and the sound it makes sometimes resembles that of cats, and this sound has a strong contrast with its size.
puma
So in general, we can't summarize the whole by a rule that applies in most cases, that is, we can't distinguish between the subfamily of cats and the subfamily of leopards simply by whether they can roar.
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