Is it in the same genus? Yes. No one’s arguing that.
As someone who is a scientist who studies lions, I am telling you, specifically, in science, no one calls lions panthers. If you want to be “specific” like you said, then you shouldn’t either. They’re not the same thing.
If you’re saying “panther” you’re referring to the taxonomic grouping of Panthera, which includes things from tigers to leopards to jaguars.
So your reasoning for calling a lion a panther is because random people “call the roaring ones panthers?” Let’s get snow leopards in there, then, too.
Also, calling someone a human or an ape? It’s not one or the other, that’s not how taxonomy works. They’re both. A panther is a panther and a member of the panthera genus. But that’s not what you said. You said a lion is a panther, which is not true unless you’re okay with calling all members of the panthera genus panthers, which means you’d call tigers and jaguars, and other cats panthers, too. Which you said you don’t.
The VR game Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners has a series of decisions at the end. On my first playthrough I managed to fuck up everything and everybody.
spoilerFirst you can choose to flood either a storage full of supplies that could help a ton of people or a guy trapped in a bunker next to them who was pleading with me through radio. I just didn’t have the heart to kill him while he’s talking to me, even though sacrificing him would probably be justified in the post-apocalyptic reality of the game. Then one of the few unambiguously good characters, stricken with grief, threatens to ring a bell which would attract a horde of zombies and lead to a massacre. A soldier is ready to shoot her to prevent that. There’s gotta be a way to talk it through, right? Well, no, he was pulling the trigger so I shot him first. That soldier? The guy I refused to flood earlier. And guess what? I couldn’t talk it through. She was adamant she will pull the rope and… I ended up shoting her too. Great fucking job, hero. It really hit hard too - these were not just dialogue choices or anything. I had to actually turn the right valve in the first case and then pull the trigger in the other two.
Well, this being a VR game, I just put a pistol to my temple and pulled the trigger. Figured that was a valid choice after fucking everything up. I got a standard game over screen, but as far as I’m concerned that’s how the story ended that particular playthrough.