h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Seven Big Cats - A6603888
Author: Opti strong hands- A3435996 the Madonna project - U231227

Big Cats entry re-released in peer review.

The word flow is going to need a lot of work - many of the sentences are almost incomprehensible! But I'm not going to look at it yet, as it is important to get the content right first.

Firstly, you're going to have to decide what animals to put in the entry. How can you have an entry called The Seven Big Cats, and not include Tigers, which are the biggest cats, and Snow Leopards? That's like having an entry called "The Countries of the United Kingdom" and not mentioning England or Northern Ireland.

The cat family "felidae" or felids, is divided into three, or possibly four, groups:

Panthera (roaring cats), which includes Lions, Tigers, Jaguars, Leopards and Snow Leopards (also called Ounces)
Cheetahs
Felis (purring cats) which includes pumas as well as all sorts of ocelots, margays, scottish wild cats and domestic cats.
Lynxes (possibly, or they may be part of the genus Felis)

The clouded leopard is considered a member of Felis by some and a member of Panthera by others.

The term "big cats" normally only refers to panthera, but I can see a case for including cheetahs, lynxes, clouded leopards and pumas. Ocelots is stretching it a bit, though.

Some other content-related things:

Lions:
Male Lions do assist in the hunt - the big dominant male stands and roars which scares the game into the line of waiting females. The younger males, who are not yet old enough to challenge the dominant male, hunt with the females.

Leopards:
Black panthers - many people will remember Bagheera from The Jungle Book.
I don't think you get more black panthers in the rain forest. It's just a random mutation that pops up every so often. Perhaps you could check this.
"It was first thought that leopards originated from lions and panthers producing offspring and this is reflected in the name leopard" -- this is wrong. Originally leopards were called pards. The name leopard was applied to the cheetah because it was thought they were a cross between a lion (leo) and a pard. Gradually the name leopard came to be used for the animal it is now used for, and the smaller fast cat became known as a cheetah.

Jaguars:
"and finaly Jaguars can be born with black fur."
-- this is not a difference between Jaguars and Leopards, as you've already pointed out that Leopards can also be born with black fur.

Lynxes:
"There is great confusion amongst scientists at present whether the lynx falls under the catogory of felid or felis"
-- this is stated very confusingly, because felis is a subset of the felids. What you mean is "whether the Lynx is a member of the genus Felis or whether it forms a separate group".

Pumas:
You're going to need a lot more about the puma.

Thanks Gnomon

Hello Opti...

Is this Entry work in progress? I can't wait to see it finished.

SAUSAGE

To be honest I'm much better at starting something than finishing things off

Maybe you remove this from PR while you give it an overhaul, and resubmit it when it's ready? Y'know... to keep the PR list tidy and stuff. What do you think?

SAUSAGE