First big cat/small cat hybrids

Near the end of the 19th century, matings between pumas Puma concolor and leopards Panthera pardusin in captivity at German animal collector Carl Hagenbeck's private zoo, the Tierpark, successfully resulted in the birth and survival into adulthood of several puma-leopard hybrids – the first ever recorded. As the puma and the leopard are a small cat species and a big cat species respectively, they are housed in very different genera, making it all the more remarkable that such genetically discrete species could yield viable offspring. In instances when the father is a puma and the mother a leopardess, the resulting hybrids are called pumapards; in the reverse cross, where the father is a leopard and the mother a puma, the resulting hybrids are called lepumas.

Even though some puma specimens can be as large as leopards and jaguars, the puma as a species is classed as a small cat because of its throat structure, which differs from that of true big cats such as leopards and jaguars (enabling them to roar, whereas the puma and other small cats cannot roar).

One of the most famous of Hagenbeck's pumapards was raised by a fox terrier bitch, and was displayed at his Tierpark during the first decade of the 20th century. This specimen resembled a puma in overall form but was noticeably smaller in size than either of its progenitor species and its coat was patterned with pronounced rosettes and blotches. It also had a very long tail.