Anyone seen a "black panther"?

[bjdeming]

I saw this in the news just now and wondered if anyone might have seen it and have photos or media.

That's a stock photo, not the Louisiana sighting.

It's interesting because there has never been confirmation of a black panther (cougar, mountain lion, puma) in the US.

Jaguars are often black, but that's hardly likely. It's major news if they make it as far as southern Texas or Arizona. Anyway, those cats are massive: no one would mistake them for anything else.

"Too big for a house cat" means it might be a melanistic bobcat (check tail length) or possibly a melanistic serval (very long legs) or jungle cat (my guess, since it already looks like a house cat and is larger).

Servals are used in breeding Savanna fancy cats; jungle cats, Chausies. Both frequently have melanism. One might have escaped from a breeding program. Neither is very dangerous to people or good-sized dogs when healthy and well fed, but they can raid poultry and might go after outdoor cats.

My second guess would be bobcat, since hurricanes have messed up its Florida habitat. Louisiana is far away, but perhaps not for a dispersing male.

Anyway, pix anyone?

 

[bjdeming]

FWIW, I speculated about this on the blog yesterday.

 

[JPWX]

I haven't actually seen one, but I've heard one. It literally sounds like a woman screaming. I kid you not. I didn't know what it was at first so I told my dad and he went outside to check. That was 4 or 6 years ago. Haven't heard one since.

 

[Austin Dawg]

A very long time ago I was coming up Hatley Smithville Road in northeast Mississippi about 2:30 or 3 in the morning with a friend of mine. A very large brown cat jumped across the road one time in the center and then bounded up onto the hill going up the driver's side into the woods. I didn't say anything at first until my friend looked at me and said, "Did you see that?" I said, "I was gonna wait until you told me you saw it too before I said anything". I have no idea what it was but it was not a cat or a dog. It was very dark brown and I can see how it would be confused with black if the lighting was wrong, but it was in my headlights so I got a good look at the color.

 

[bjdeming]

Did it look anything like this (only brown)?



That's in Missouri, 2018; a bobcat, which ordinarily would be brown. They're the only lynx known to sometimes be black.

 

[TVILLE96]

I've spoken to two people who have seen large cats in Alabama. One swore it was a black panther or large black cat that walked out in front of him on a dirt road while he was leaving his hunting spot. It scared him pretty bad he said. Another witnessed a large brown cat drinking out of his pool. He showed me a picture of his pool and 6 ft privacy fence and the spot the cat jumped from when the cat exited his back yard by jumping over his fence. It was a pretty good distance the cat effortlessly jumped and cleared the top of his fence without touching it. We have two or three big cat rescues in Alabama so people do have big cats as pets. I believe some might escape or are let go when they get too large to take care of.

 

[bjdeming]

The easy jumping ability is certainly a puma characteristic, and some might have wandered up from Florida, whether one calls them pumas, panthers, cougars, or mountain lions.

They tend to be shyer around human infrastructure than bobcats, though.

I haven't heard of any melanistic puma sightings, but it's fairly common in bobcats, which are smaller but still bigger than house cats.

Bobcats are less dangerous towards humans than pumas are. Here are some safety tips.

Another melanistic wild cat that used to live in parts of the southeast and southwest but hasn't had a confirmed sighting in a long time is the jaguarundi.

If anyone ever sees a short-legged, long-bodied, long-tailed cat-like critter -- black or red or gray -- get a good picture or video of it with location and time/date info and alert your local official wildlife people. They'll be delighted to get a confirmed sighting.