anyone ever seen large black cats or panthers in strange locations?

[Gato Moteado]

some people here at DU know I'm a cryptozoology freak. the "cryptids" that fascinate me most are known as mysterious big cats or alien big cats, and they are large cats (usually thought to be pumas or jaguars) and they are often black and they are seen in places where these type of cats supposedly don't exist (for example: black jaguars in Oklahoma or mountain lions in Illinois).

anyone here ever seen a large cat in a place where they supposedly don't exist?

[kayakjohnny]

1. We have a jaguarundi supposedly here at Canaveral National Seashore.

And I believe it too. Also some Florida Panthers still exist up this far and all around the Cape.

I have heard a very large cat roar while hiking down at Canaveral.

Have heard many many eyewitness accounts and they seem quite credible to me.

No black cats here though.

From wikipedia ....A black panther is a large black cat, typically a melanistic colour variant of any of several species of larger cat. Wild black panthers in Latin America are black jaguars (Panthera onca), in Asia and Africa they are black leopards (Panthera pardus), and in North America they may be black jaguars or possibly black cougars (Puma concolor – although this has not been proven to have a black variant), or smaller cats.


Jaguarundi:

[Gato Moteado]

8. i didn't know jaguarundis ranged that far east

but it doesn't surprise me. we had them in TX.

I see them from time to time on my properties here in Costa Rica and they are almost always the black color morph.

any news on the status of the florida panther? when i lived in miami, things looked grim. they estimated 30 to 60 in the wild at that time and the land developers were pulling out all the stops to be able to develop in panther habitat. i figured after enough years with human garbage like jeb bush as governor, the panther would succumb to development.

[Withywindle]

15. What a cute face.

I bet it could really fuck you up. :)

[Gato Moteado]

18. They're really not that big.......

...much smaller than the really big cats...and they're really afraid of people.

i see jaguarundis from time to time and you only get a glimpse of them.

[Withywindle]

31. I only say that because my 12-pound housecat brings the hurt all the time.

And she has eyes like that. She's really sweet when she's sleepy. She's a darling, she loves to snuggle.

But she ALSO likes to play really rough at other times. I understand why she was at the shelter for many months--she has really kind of violent behavior patterns. I have scratch and bite marks all over my hands and arms and shoulders.

I don't blame her for this. She was feral for the first few years of her life, and her hunting instinct is still strong. But my point was that even small members of the feline class can hurt...and yet we still find them cute. Because our species have evolved together.

edit: my point is that even cute housepets can be dangerous and draw blood. Wild animals, even more so.

I would rather be killed by a wild predatory animal than live in a world where none exist.

[charlie and algernon]

2. never seen any, but I've always been fascinated by the idea of "cryptids" as well

the planet is too big and there is too much undeveloped space for there NOT to be good-sized animals running around we have yet to discover. Now I don't think there are bigfoots or sea monsters in every forest and lake around the world, but there has to be some big cats or other animals out there that haven't been cataloged.

[Gato Moteado]

9. and it's not necessarily big cats that haven't been discovered yet.....

....it's that known big cats are popping up in strange places, or seem to be according to numerous eye witnesses.

i can believe that mountain lions (or cougars, panthers, or pumas, if you prefer) might be seen in the hills of kentucky or tennessee. it's not that far fetched that Felis concolor could be moving back into previously occupied territory from the west or from florida. but when there are reports of large black cats in places like KY, TN, IL, etc, that's very different because one would have to suspect melanistic jaguars since there has never been a known occurrence of a melanistic cougar. Now jaguars are starting to be seen a bit more frequently in the southern border states like AZ and NM as more and more of them work their way into the US from MX. But, how can you explain them in the midwest or east coast?

and what about all the big cat sightings in the UK? maybe escapees from zoos or private collections?

[FogerRox]

61. And how about Ocelots?

[Gato Moteado]

62. possibly, some of the big cat sightings are ocelots mistaken for jaguars.....

....sometimes people have a hard time judging size when they're excited or afraid. ocelots are significantly smalles than the big cats, but they do exist in texas and probably elsewhere in the southwest.

[hobbit709]

3. Define strange location.

I've seen plenty of mountain lions is South TX.

[Gato Moteado]

6. south texas is not a strange location for mountain lions.....

.....but if you see a big black cat it's possible it's a jaguar and that would be cool!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. There was a cougar in the parking lot behind my office building

in a suburb of Minneapolis a few weeks ago. I would consider that a strange location. However, it was a regular tan cougar, not a black one. I don't know if they come in black.

[Gato Moteado]

7. that actually might not be too strange of a place for a cougar

sometimes they do venture into suburban areas from the wilderness.

still, a cool sight to see i bet!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

42. Mountain lions are making a comeback in this area.

I didn't see the one that turned up in the parking lot, but several people who came to work early saw him and called the DNR. I guess they confirmed the sighting, and the cat was seen again a few days later in the same place. We all got an email warning us to be careful walking around outside, especially in the morning or after dark.

Other cougars have been sighted from time to time in the Twin Cities suburbs, usually not far from a river. There are a lot of deer in the area, so there's plenty of food for them.

[Gato Moteado]

43. cool!

i'm glad to hear that.

[PassingFair]

58. Did it look like this:

Cougar in Parking Lot

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

59. More like this:

[thirtiesgirl]

5. Yes.

On my kitchen table, and in my laundry basket.

[Mugu]

10. Saw this one in my backyard.

[Generic Brad]

11. I saw a pink panther on a roll of fiberglass

Does that count?

[Gato Moteado]

12. yes......

.....it counts.

[suninvited]

13. In 1998 in Pensacola, Florida

I was sitting in my den using my computer and I had the door to outside open which led to a breezeway between the house and the garage. I would say it was around November. My cat was sitting on the breezeway eating when suddenly something huge and black came flying by the door and landed right on top of my cat.

They rolled out into the yard, and I could tell whatever it was was a cat by the sounds it made, only this thing was HUGE. The light from the breezeway didnt shine quite far enough to get a good look, but I could see the large black animal's head silhouetted against my cats throat which was solid white. My poor cat was screaming, the other animal didnt make a lot of noise. I picked up the only heavy thing I could get my hands on immediately which was a large potted plant which had a rope attached for hanging. I stood directly over the two animals and swung with all my might and hit it dead on. The animal was gone in a flash, leaving my cat with some wicked bite marks on its neck.

My cat didnt venture outside for months and he usually loved to go outside and hang around on the breezeway. I stopped leaving cat food outside.

Nobody, even the vet that treated my cat would believe he was attacked by a black panther (although the vet said the bite marks were too big to be from a cat), but it was the only thing that fit given the size of this animal. But he was definitely attacked by something that was no housecat, was solid black, had big teeth and made cat sounds.

[Gato Moteado]

16. That's an incredible story......

.....and exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for.

I believe you.....but the only thing strange about the story is that your cat survived. I would think that a large black cat would certainly have to be a melanistic jaguar and jaguars have the strongest jaws of any cat (they eat turtles and can bite through the shells). So, the fact that a house cat could survive the jaws of a large cat like you describe is amazing.

Now, there are melanistic bobcats in FL....is it possible that the cat was only about twice the size of your cat?

[suninvited]

29. what is a melanistic bobcat?

is it solid black? This thing was black as the night, the only real sight I got of it was as it whooshed by the open door airborne as it leaped on my cat.

I was out there in seconds, and the whole incident was less than a minute. When I hit it, it was like hitting a wall. The potted plant weighed a good 20 pounds and I swung that thing with all my might, so anything small it would have knocked off my cat and I would imagine sent it flying. The thing let go without a sound and took off like a rocket, but my hit didnt budge it at all. I think it was bigger than twice the size of my cat.

I was shaking so bad after it was over I started crying just from the adrenaline rush.

on edit: I am almost certain that my thing had a long black tail as well. I dont think it could have been a bobcat.

[Gato Moteado]

32. yes, melanistic bobcats are all black

i'm thinking then that it must have been a jaguarundi.

[Gato Moteado]

19. of course the other possibility is a jaguarundi i guess.....

...apparently they have those in FL.

[Withywindle]

14. Mountain lions definitely do exist in Illinois.

We had a case a couple years ago of one in a dense urban neighborhood in Chicago. It got shot, of course. :(

I don't know if they have a black color variant, but I guess it's possible. Maybe bobcats do too. I know when my parents still lived in the mountains in SW VA they saw a bobcat that lived in the woods on their land sometimes and were surprised at how big it was. (This one was your basic stripy-tabby pattern). Jaguars definitely do come in black, and IMO it's very possible that there might be still a few stalking around in wild places in the South and Southwest. A black jaguar as far as Oklahoma would not be shocking to me--but it would be rare and wondrous and I really hope some redneck doesn't shoot it.

[Gato Moteado]

17. In what neighborhood in Chicago did this happen?

I'd love to do some research on that.

Did they ever come out and say if the cat was a wild puma or if it was one that escaped captivity?

[Withywindle]

22. Roscoe Village, just west of Wrigleyville

It was in April 2008. Very sad.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080417-cougar-shot.html

http://www.mahalo.com/cougar-in-chicago

I don't think it was ever known whether it was an escapee or a wild animal. But this article, which is about DNA testing after the shooting, suggests that it came from the Black Hills of South Dakota

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-05-01/news/0805010048_1_cougar-scientists-wisconsin-department


There have been other sightings of cougars in Illinois and Wisconsin and Indiana since.

[Gato Moteado]

23. wow.....i can't believe they couldn't tranquelize it and relocate it........

the article said the cat posed a safety risk, so a bunch of cops cornered it in an alley and opened fire on it.......that sounds really safe.

[Withywindle]

25. Yeah. I know. It's shameful.

Did they really think a cougar was more dangerous than a bunch of guns fired around rush hour in a crowded neighborhood? Pathetic. We actually DO have some good Forest Preserve personnel with some experience in this kind of thing. They could have been called. It was a scandal - lots and lots of people thought this could have been resolved without killing. BUT there definitely are cops who like to shoot things.

[Withywindle]

20. re: bobcats

OK, I just went on Wikipedia and apparently there ARE documented cases of melanistic bobcats in Florida:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobcat#Physical_characteristics

If they're in Florida, then they could be anywhere else too. They're nowhere near as big as cougars or jaguars, but they are about twice the size of an average domestic cat.

[Gato Moteado]

21. yes, there are melanistic bobcats in florida......

....when i was living in miami, there were quite a few documented cases. melanism tends to occur closer to the equator, and it's unlikely (though, not impossible) for it to occur in the north.

[Withywindle]

54. Melanistic squirrels are pretty common in the north

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_squirrel


Kent, Ohio (home of Kent State) has so many of them it holds a Black Squirrel Festival every year!

[Lady President]

60. I didn't know black squirrels were unusual.

My dad's family is from near Kent and I went to college in Akron. I've always seen so many black squirrels that I didn't even know they were uncommon. They're very cute though!

[astral]

24. Carnivorous animals are being transplanted here and there

in the USA. Part of the "Re-Wilding of America." People getting attacked more on hikes now are partly due to this. The encroachment of wild animals into peoples' property as well.

[InvisibleTouch]

26. I haven't been so lucky.

I did once see a cougar crossing the highway during a long night drive, which was definitely the highlight of my trip - but it wasn't in an unexpected location.

Haven't seen you around in a bit ... hope you've been well! :)

[Gato Moteado]

33. i've been OK.....struggling like just about everyone else........

....how have you been?

[InvisibleTouch]

38. Pretty good in most respects...

...animals are doing well, which is the important part. Had Honduran eggs this year. :) The big problem is finances, to the point of being worried how I will keep the heat on this winter, but somehow we always survive. I'm still working toward my big dreams.

[HEyHEY]

27. I had a saber toothed tiger in my rasberry bushes once, shooed him away.

[HEyHEY]

28. I had a saber toothed tiger in my rasberry bushes once, shooed him away.

[TorchTheWitch]

30. panthers are just black leopards

Watched a really interesting documentary on leopards on PBS a couple weeks ago. Panthers are some anomoly of leopards, cougars or jaguars that make them black but the leopards and jaguars still have the spotted pattern if you look closely.

One of the interesting things in the documentary was that both the black colored leopards (panthers) and the regular spotted ones are encroaching on human habitats to hunt in both day and night time. They followed two spotted leopards that were young sisters slinking all through a neighborhood getting into mischief and slinking off unseen. They even went right up to houses and prowled porches, peeked into windows, pilfered trash cans... all very stealthily and quietly. It was fascinating.

I would imagine that big cats showing up in places they don't originate from is the result of the selling of these animals as pets and are then let loose by the owners or escape and are just making new homes in that environment combined with the encroachment of humans on their environment forcing them ever farther afield. One thing they focused on in the documentary about the leopards is that at this point they can be found pretty much everywhere in the world in both deserts and freezing snowy mountains and human neighborhoods everywhere in between. I just can't remember how they resolved the issue of how they got in all these places or if it was resolved at all.

I just love these nature programs.

[PBS Poll-435]

34. The End Zone

:P

[TZ]

35. I majored in zoology, most "cryptids" are total bullshit

Like most species, globalization has caused many species to be accidently and purposefully carried to ecosystems they didn't live in before.
Like the fact that so many pet pythons have escaped or be let loose in Florida that they have no become an established species.
And black (or melanistic) cougars/pumas are actually known--they aren't "alien cats" (Oy vey, thats a really ridiculous concept).
Or perhaps you think the occasional melanistic/black squirrel is an "alien squirrel"?
But seriously all black felines, are known and there's nothing mysterious about them. And finding them in new spots with global climate change is nothing unexpected either. Unless you want to point out the black cat you found in the north pole?
Most cryptozoology is complete pseudoscience and 99.9% of zoologists will tell you so.
As for the discovering of new species...that happens often in remote areas, like the Himalayas or at the bottom of the ocean.
I'm really sick of people seeing mangy foxes, coyotes, and other canids for example and screaming "chupacabra"!!!
The species in this world, especially the mega vertabretes like big cats, are well known and well described. And with so many people also keeping exotic animals as pets, finding big cats where they "shouldn't be" is actually common (hello, someone had a FREAKIN tiger in a NYC apartment).

[Gato Moteado]

36. good points.....

but, i don't think they're called alien big cats because they're black....they are called that merely because they're out of place. a melanistic squirrel wouldn't be an alien squirrel in a place where squirrels are normally found.

that said, i agree that global warming could be bringing large cats into places where they wouldn't be expected - or maybe it's that, for some reason or another, large cats are moving back into places they inhabited before people drove them out hundreds of years ago. the release or escape of exotic pets is certainly another factor.

i don't think these cats sightings are a result of some unknown or new species. the discovery of new megafauna is certainly much more uncommon than the discovery of new small species, but it does happen from time to time. these cats, however, are certainly escaped pets or they're moving into these areas from other regions - at least in my opinion.

i also agree with you that so many cryptids spring from peoples' imaginations after they've seen an animal they couldn't identify.

still, i hold a little hope that there remains a population of sauropods in the congo basin and that there is something to the loch ness monster and strange hominid sightings. i realize the chances are slim for any of that - but it doesn't keep me from being fascinated by it all.

the part of cryptozoology that really interests me now, though, as i started to touch upon in the OP, is the sighting of known animals in areas where they don't belong or where they were known to exist until modern times but are now thought to be extinct. i love big black cat sightings in the south and southwest because it gives me hope that a substantial amount of jaguars (a cat that was once native to the US southwest) could be working their way up from mexico and finding ample habitat in places like AZ, NM, TX and possibly OK. I also am fascinated by sightings of the thylacine (a carnivorous, predatory marsupial thought to have gone extinct around the 1930s when the last known living specimen died in a zoo) in Australia and Tasmania.

[Gato Moteado]

37. ah.....also.....i didn't know of any truly black or melanistic pumas

i know in latin america, close to the equator, they have seen some very dark ones, but i hadn't heard of anything close to a melanistic puma ever being recorded in the US.

[InvisibleTouch]

40. Zoologist here too...

...but I eventually found that a purely objective mindset damaged the wonder, passion, and fascination that drew me toward the subject to begin with. The facts of ecology, evolution, physiology, climate change, and dispersal are vital to know, because they form the basis for our understanding of why animals do what they do, and why they live where they live, how they interact and survive, and how they can be protected. But there's something to be said for retaining an element of wonder, mystery, and dare I say it, spirituality in our approach to the natural world. Logically I know it's unlikely there are populations of large undiscovered vertebrates still living in some unspoiled hidden paradise - but I too would like to retain the hope that it's at least possible. Something humans haven't found and destroyed yet. There are still new species of vertebrates discovered in remote areas, and sure, they are small, but they raise at least a fond hope.

[dawg]

50. But I have so much FUN calling things chupacabra!

Ugly dogs, bob-tailed cats, possums, people I don't like.

[LynneSin]

39. No but all my men wear Sex Panther Cologne - 60% of the time it works everytime!

[Kablooie]

41. Nope. But I did see a red fox chase a squirrel on my wall here in Los Angeles.

It's not native to this area at all.
Possibly was someone's illegal pet that escaped.

[haele]

44. My husband's uncle in law saw one last year in lower Alabama -

called it a "black panther", said it was larger than the bobcats he usually saw by the large pond on his chunk of acreage of farm and woodlot that the town has been developing around. He's also seen red coyotes and black bears recently, and thinks there might be a couple cougars around the area.
What's odd is that there really isn't a lot of dense woods around; the local is littered with ranches, industrial parks (Nissan and other manufacturing), cotton, soybean, and peanut farms and only a few pine-tree lots compared to twenty/forty miles north and east.

Haele

[Gato Moteado]

47. with the lack of wilderness.....

....where do you think those animals are all living?

[Gato Moteado]

48. with the lack of wilderness.....

....where do you think those animals are all living?

[struggle4progress]

45. I know this isn't really what you're asking, but it's the closest I can get to it

I lived in the high desert east of the Sierra Nevada about thirty-five years ago. There hadn't been any known wild cat attacks on people for many decades then, but reported sightings were rumored from time to time, so we all took seriously the standard advice about being careful not to walk carelessly where anybody could jump down on you unawares from a ledge

I never saw any full grown wild cats myself

But one morning somebody discovered a cluster of kittens stashed by mama under some decorative brush near the center of the ranch circle -- not many yards from the residences and the chow house

Cute little dusty-yellow things. Nobody really wanted to meet mama -- so we scoped them out briefly and carefully, from a respectful distance, and went about our business elsewhere, staying suitably away from the brush thereafter

Since I made it a point not to be overly-curious, I'm not quite sure exactly when they moved -- they weren't there all that long, probably less than 24 hours

Anyway, it proved the wild cats were still around

[Gato Moteado]

46. what do you think they were?

bobcats? cougars?

[struggle4progress]

49. I think cougar hunting was legal then, and this was ranch country, so I expect

rancher hostility kept cougars scarce. People with families somehow tend to dislike rattlesnakes and cougar and such

There were mule deer in the mountains that cougar could have taken

My best guess would be bobcat: there were probably enough small mammals about to keep them happy -- hares and the like. The ranchers were probably less hostile to bobcat, since it's a real pain to drive around looking for somebody's little burrow holes into your irrigation ditches and plugging them before the water causes a collapse that takes some time to fix

But I don't know for sure. The young won't look all that different to a quick look from distance by an uninformed eye. And it seemed to me a strange "safe spot." Some people kept odd hours: almost any time of day or night, somebody was likely to be up and about. Lots of folk were up after midnight, moving around from one building to another, and the dairy men began their work around 3:30 AM. So I might think parking the cat family there was a sign of some fearlessness. OTOH, coyote were plentiful quite nearby, but stayed out of the immediate vicinity of the ranch circle, so maybe the parking place was about keeping away from coyotes.

[pitohui]

51. have you heard of the black kangaroo outside jackson, miss?

i haven't seen any of these out of place black animals myself

for awhile a few years back there was hot debate about "black swans" in louisiana, whether the swans were real or not (black swans are a COMMON introduced bird in europe), it seemed like it was a fad for folks to see them and now i haven't heard anything about them in years

i have only seen black swans in europe (amsterdam, no jokes please) and of course australia

none of the black out of place cats, and i have not even thought about the black kangaroo in years

[Gato Moteado]

52. when i was growing up, there were all sorts of kangaroo sightings in the chicago area.....

....i don't remember what ever became of that.

[struggle4progress]

55. Did a phantom kangaroo once haunt Chicago?

http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc20100311.php

[DainBramaged]

53. Yeah, on my bed a few years back....

[valerief]

56. Every so often I see a fat cat driving a Jaguar. nt

[PassingFair]

57. I SWEAR I saw one in Florida about 6 years ago....

HUGE black panther, walking down the roadside,
in the dark.

We were lost, trying to find the Tamiami Trail
after midnight, heading north out of Miami area.

No one saw it but me.

Well, it was BLACK and it was DARK!!

[Haole Girl]

63. Large black cat? Strange locations?

Many times.