Cats are one thing I know quite a bit about, and I can tell you with a high degree of certainty that there is no such thing as a black amur leopard. If the one mentioned was born to allegedly amur parents (as per the link), it means they were NOT pureblooded amurs. Up until recently, zoos bred animals with no regard to subspecies, so there are a lot of mixed genes out there. I assume Thrigby is not participating in the leopard EEP as I'm sure they would never allow crossbreeding an amur to a black.
That black leopard on the picture IS a part of the Amur leopard EEP. But you are right, it has got quite a high percentage of Nort Chinese leopard blood. On the other hand, most animals in EEP are not 100% pure Amurs.
Why assume that North Chinese (or Amur) leopards can not be melanistic-or rather, that there might not be a secret carrier or two of the apt recessive allele in the population?
Apparently, the likeliness to exhibit the melanistic colour morph is smaller in the more Northern leopard subspecies than in, say, some populations of the Indo-Chinese leopard. Yet this does not outrule the possibility that an Amur or North Chinese black panther can occur as a rare exception of the rule.
