BULLETIN FLORIDA MUSEUM NATURAL HISTORY VOL 40(3)


present data set. The objective was to determine if P. c. coryi could be
discriminated from populations that it most closely resembles and to which it is
closest geographically.
 Discriminant function analysis examined possible misclassification of
specimens (p<0.05), using those specimens with reliable data as the base
calibration group. Suspected hybrids (cats from the Everglades), others lacking
data or with uncertain data, and those animals that could not be reliably identified
as Florida panthers were treated as a test group.

 Results

 The three groups produced only two canonical variables, which together
explained 100% of the variation. Canonical variable I (CV1) explained 81% of the
variation for females, and 80% for males, with 19% and 20% respectively being
explained by CV2. The measurements contributing to CV1 for females were total
length, zygomatic breadth, pterygoid width, and upper carnassial crown length,
while width of palate pterygoid width, condyle width, and maxillary tooth row
were major contributing variables to CV2. For males total length, zygomatic
breadth, condylobasal length, and post-orbital process breadth contributed to CVI,
and zygomatic breadth, maxillary tooth row, and palatal width at canines
contributed most to CV2 (Table 6). The plots of the canonical variables showed
groups much more discrete than with other analyses (Fig. 10). As expected, HIST
and RECENT P. c. coryi overlapped considerably. A single female Florida cougar
was within the range of variation expressed by the Texas group. Test animals fell
either on the periphery or outside the range of P. c. coryi, as did the two females
from the Everglades. The only test animal that could confidently be assigned to P.
c. coryi was the skull found at the Frampton Wildlife Refuge in Volusia County in
1987.
 The results of the discriminant analysis follow the CDA plots in that animals
outside the range of variation of P. c..coryi were reclassified (Table 7). However,
because only three groups were represented, the individual being reclassified was
placed in the group it most closely resembled. This confounds the interpretation,
but is nevertheless instructive. Cats killed within the last 20 years in Louisiana
and Arkansas were reclassified into the Texas subspecies P. c. stanleyana and are
probably not relicts from the original population inhabiting those states but either
new introductions from the west or escaped captive individuals. The two
Everglades cats, the Canal Point cat and one Piper captive were reclassified as P. c.
azteca. The skeleton found in Volusia County was reclassified as P. c. coryi. The
captive Piper male from Everglades Wonder Gardens, which although well outside
the range of variation of P. c. coryi, was more similar to it than to any of the other