這是《動物王國大探險展》森林生態區的黑豹導覽。在此聆聽這身夜色皮毛如何成為雨林中的偽裝。
上方可播放導覽語音。逐字稿與語音內容相同。
This is the black panther stop in the forest gallery of the Animal Kingdom Grand Adventure Exhibition. Listen here to how a night-black coat becomes camouflage in the rainforest.
Play the narration above. The transcript matches the audio.
眼前的黑豹，是熱帶雨林中的頂級掠食者，擁有一身如夜色般漆黑的皮毛，而上面的豹紋斑點，在光影下若隱若現。
亞洲、非洲、美洲都有黑豹，但黑豹並非獨立的物種，而是花豹或美洲豹，因為黑化症基因突變而產生的外觀變化。而且牠們不是純黑色的，只是因為過度分泌黑色素，導致在光源下才能看清楚身上的豹紋，這也被稱為「幽靈斑紋」。
黑化並非演化的缺陷，而是一種精密的自然選擇適應。即使不同地區的豹都有可能突變出黑豹，但野生黑豹主要分佈在東南亞濕度極高、遮蔽度極大的茂密熱帶雨林中，因為茂密的熱帶雨林光線極度幽暗、黑色毛皮能提供更完美的偽裝。
守護黑豹，也是維繫頂級掠食者對生態的平衡，讓地球古老的雨林生生不息。
The black panther before you is a top predator of the tropical rainforest, wearing a coat as black as night, the rosettes on it appearing and vanishing in the light.
Asia, Africa, and the Americas all have black panthers, but the black panther is not a species of its own. It is a leopard or a jaguar whose look has changed through a melanism mutation. They are not purely black; they simply overproduce melanin, so the spots show clearly only under a light. That is also called the ghost pattern.
Melanism is not an evolutionary defect. It is a precise adaptation by natural selection. Leopards in different regions may all mutate into black panthers, but wild ones live mainly in the dense tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia, where humidity and cover are extreme. In that deep gloom, a black coat is the more perfect camouflage.
To protect the black panther is also to keep the balance a top predator holds in the ecology, so Earth's ancient rainforests may keep living.