Ignore the radio-collar. This cat does NOT exist. It is not in any database. There are no cougar in CT.
Posted on 10/14/2017 2:18:57 PM PDT by BenLurkin
At least here in OR everyone knows there are mountain lions around, no secret...
I admit I am scared of them.
No, jaguars are sometimes black [melanistic], and old world leopards can also be melanistic, but panthers a/k/a mountain lions evidently do not have the genetic material to be black in color, no such recessive trait.
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Pumas/cougars/panthers/painters/mountainlions [or pyumas as the Smothers Brothers call them] are the color of whitetail deer, beige, if you will.
Now jaguars at one time were indigenous to Louisiana.
“Monster in the Garden”.
We’ve been warned.
Mountain lion, cougar or puma are brown to yellow and generally a southwestern cat.
Panthers are black and generally southeastern cats.
Jaguars in the southwest can be so dark that you cannot see their spots, thus they look like panthers.
I have seen all in the wild (continental US). The panthers I have seen are huge compared to the mountain lions. However, male cats are larger than female.
I was too shocked to note the genders.
Not Nikes or Addidas?
North Carolina call them “painters” also.
There are no documented cases of black Puma concolor though rumors abound. No black puma skins to be had by trappers, etc. My grandmother claimed to have been followed home by a black panther back in the early 1900s but at night with a moon, a backlit puma of normal grayish tan would look black.
Old world leopards and new world jaguars, however, are another story, there's ample living proof of black leopards and jaguars in nearly every zoo, and black leopard and jaguar skins exist. Since jaguars were once native to Texas and Louisiana, I always wondered if when they were exterminated in the US the last survivors in the swamps may have been the melanistic jaguars and perhaps those spawned the rumors of black cougars/catamouonts.
Funny how that happens. Last year while elk hunting in Nevada, we spotted two moose (fairly far south, not super far north of I-80). Soon after had an extended conversation with a BLM guy for that region who basically called me a liar because there are no moose in Nevada (it is known)
All the government types must be nitwits. We had always been told that gators couldn’t live and reproduce in central Alabama because it was too cold. Any caught were blamed on people letting loose one’s they had got in Florida. Then they started pulling huge, very old gators out of the Alabama river. Suckers have always been here. Black panthers are here too. Lot’s of wilderness and swamps in Alabama.
Some here in NY don’t know enough to be afraid of them.
I’ve seen big mountain lion footprints in the snow here, and smelled them (like tomcat pee but 100X worse), and HUGE piles of scat. Several pounds.
They can jump or climb 8 foot tall and higher fences, kill a goat or other similar animal, and drag it back over the fence.
I am very afraid of them, refuse to walk around at night outside.
LOL...shoulda seen that one coming...
ok
Local news identified it as a Panther.
Three plus decades ago was trailed by one of these curious cats while hunting upon a property south of I-20 in Mississippi. Landowner had spotted these since 1970’s, following the deer along heavily traveled paths.
Saw that one run at top speed across the forest floor with no discernible sound. Solid black or deep brown with no dapples, and not the more heavy build typical of the Jaguar. Common knowledge for that area was to keep vigil the trees, while walking the brush.
Ha, I’d like to take credit as being a feline expert, but it was just a WAG by me.
Ignore the radio-collar. This cat does NOT exist. It is not in any database. There are no cougar in CT.
They play that game in soviet Red Hampshire, as well...the authorities will not acknowledge the existence of mountain lions in rural areas east and northeast of Concord, even though local residents see them all the time.
I was in No.Conway on 70 acres for 11 years. In the deep, undeveloped woods. Never saw a big cat. Moose yes. No cats. Flying squirrels, yes.
Ocelots are beautiful.
Every time I go to Big Bend Ranch State Park I keep an eye out for one, or their prints.
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