WILKINS ET AL: FLORIDA PANTHER MORPHOLOGY


has the lowest mean value of all groups measured, despite the overlap recorded
(Fig. 9). The wide range of values for most subspecies suggests that the failure of
the analyses to discriminate between P. c. coryi and some of the other groups may
be due to small sample sizes.
 Everglades cats differed significantly from the HIST cats regardless of small
sample size. The two cats from the Everglades do in fact have small rounded
crania with flat nasals, more similar to cats from South America. In this case, the
flattened nasals represent a real difference from those of both HIST and RECENT
P. c. coryi.
 The failure of the analyses to detect the similarity of the ARUND historic
from Louisiana to HIST coryi highlights one limitation of the technique; namely
the profile scores for three ARUND historical range from 0.4 (inflated nasals) to
0.65 (inflated frontals). The score 0.65 is that of the male type specimen from
Louisiana (=arundivaga), that has, in addition to the inflated nasals, an enlarged
frontal region that obscured the inflated nasals in the normalized profile. The
technique was unable to distinguish between actual and relative differences in the
conformation of the skull.


Table 5b. Mean, standard deviation and minimum-maximum values for contour measurements of coryi
classes (n = 49). Figure in last column is probability of differences between the means of coryi (historic n =
18) vs coryi (recent), Everglades, captive, Test 1, Test 2, Test 3, arundivaga (historic) and arundivaga test
(recent). (p<0.05 Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxan 2-tailed non-parametric test).

 Standard
coryi class n Mean deviation min max Z-score Probability


Recent 18 .455 .1041 .300-.600 1.442 0.1493
Piper 3 .567 .0289 .550-.600 2.4553 0.0141*
Everglades 3 .550 .1000 .450 -.650 2.0794 0.0376*
Historic 18 .411 .0832 .350-.600
Test 11 1 .550 .0000 .550-.550 1.3862 0.1657
Test 22 2 .500 .0707 .450-.550 1.4177 0.1563
Test 33 1 .350 .0000 .350 -.350 -0.71326 0.4757
Louisiana (historic) 3 .400 .1323 .400-.650 2.0275 0.0426*
Louisiana/Arkansas (recent) 2 .583 .0763 .500- .650 2.4037 0.0162*
Total 52

2 Test I GLADES 7040 no data speimen from ENP.
3Test2-UF 19077 Canal Pomt, PiBeah Co.; UF 23985 Corbett Management are Palm Beach Co.
Test 3 UF 24042 Skeeton found in Voli Co.
*p<0.05