Consider the picture with the cat laying in the road.


I guess anywhere between 44" and 36".

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.

Black Panthers are not fiction. As a matter of fact look up Wheeler county in Texas. Back in the 80's the TPWD tagged and released serveral to see if they would survive and populate and now they want to know immediatly if you see one, kill one or trap one. I know first hand they exist my best friend is a game warden and he has removed some from traps that people have caught. Panthers are small just like house cats when they are youths just like lions and tigers, everything grows. You were not born fully grown where you?

Black Panthers are not fiction. As a matter of fact look up Wheeler county in Texas. Back in the 80's the TPWD tagged and released serveral to see if they would survive and populate and now they want to know immediatly if you see one, kill one or trap one. I know first hand they exist my best friend is a game warden and he has removed some from traps that people have caught. Panthers are small just like house cats when they are youths just like lions and tigers, everything grows. You were not born fully grown where you?