Wow thats kinda freaky, but cool at the same time

Guess that's why I've never seen one, been looking at the wrong time of day! Jaguarundi it is!

puma

So all those big black wild predator cats in Latin America are figments of people's imaginations? Sorry, but you are incorrect. A "black panther" is any black cat of the Panthera family. That includes jaguars, leopards, and cougars (mountain lions). Jaguars and mountain lions are found in North America, can breed together, and both used to be found in Texas. While no black mountain lion has ever been proven to exist, it is possible. Black Jaguars are known and proven to exist.


Look at the following picture:


My first response would be that it's a domestic cat, but let's look at it rationally.

A dirt road on a ranch dam is a little wider than the average truck. A NEW GM full size truck is 80 inches wide at the wheels. Figure there is a little room to move side to side on the road so we'll conservatively add 18 inches (a wheel width on either side) and call the road 98 inches wide.

Now look at that picture and you see the cat laid out straight and from head to tail it is about half the road, maybe a little less. So let's say the cat from head to tail is 49 inches. From the other pictures, the tail is about 1/3 of the total length. So the body is about 33 inches long.

The average domestic cat has a 18.1 inch head/body length with tails averaging 11.8 inches in length for a total average length of 29.9 inches. So by our guesstimation earlier based on the road picture, this cat is around 20 inches longer in length than the average domestic cat. 20 inches is over a foot and a half. And the longest domestic cat ever recorded was 48 inches in length and most that size are fat cats.

Look at the picture and that cat is definitely not fat and has long legs. Adult mountain lions are close to 8 feet in length. From the above measurements and looking at the cat, I would have to say this is a young black panther.

It would be nice if the next time you went out there, you took pictures from the same spot and sent man down there so we could use his height to compare the cat against.

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I would have to agree with some of the folks on here. That sure does not look like a regular house cat! My family has a place up in that same area and there was once a tiger roaming around loose. I know for a fact that there's a wildlife rescue or something like that less than a mile from our place that has had some of its animals get out a time or two. So, lord knows whats roaming around out there

why would you shot a house cat that isnt bothering anything?

Jaguarundis do not have spots!

just cause you dont see it bothering something does not mean a ditch cougar did not just finish screwing something up and they a are certainly on their way to ruin something.
I dont have any animosity toward house cats in the house but there is no place for free range or feral cats in the world

the road he's laying on is a little bitty dirt road, probably barely wide enough for a truck to drive down, that aint no paved 98" road, it's a house cat,a REAL panther would be stretched out all the way across that road. It's funny how a little black house cat can cause this much contraversy. NO BLACK PANTHERS IN TEXAS!

the person that took the pic states the road is 8 ft. Most of
us are surrounded by 8 ft walls at this moment. How many
of you have seen housecats that are 4 ft long ?

Most likely a Jaguarundi.

MO

House cat. Road is higher on side you are looking at cat from, so it makes cat look longer. Cat is really only covering part of left side and part of area that would be under truck. You can also see in the pick where the cat is sitting in the grass by the lake that the tufts of grass are taller. Go put a 5 gallon bucket out where you saw this cat and take pics, bucket will sit taller than cat did.

REAL panthers do not start off at 8 feet long. They grow from a small size, much like all warm blooded creatures.

A truck is 80" wide. Add a wheel width (9") to each side and you get 98". I think it's HIGHLY likely that the dirt road is a MINIMUM of 98" wide. Look at the other pictures and you can see tire tracks well inside the edge of the road which means the road should be even wider than 98".