Why not... I'll add my .02

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BLACK PANTHER, Cougars and Leopards are black but there is no actual Black Panther.. never has been and never will be unless some genetic engineering creates them. See the link below.

http://www.agarman.dial.pipex.com/bco/fact2.htm

My guess is the cat in the pic is either a small Cougar or BIG house cat.

I think you meant to say it's possible Jaguars and Leopards could be black. Cougars don't possess the black gene traits and have never been proven to exist.

Either way, do we really need to get hung up on the terminology? Everyone knows what a Black Panther is supposed to look like. Calling it a Black Jaguar or Leopard just sounds awkward.

PS I was hoping TPWD would weigh in after looking at this thread, but I guess they're not going to touch it with a 10' crappie pole.

I'm positive it's a black feral cat.

YESSSS!

When are we going to get the pics of the bucket? Dude said he was going to do it for scale.

I knew an old TPWD biologist for a while. One day at a program somebody asked him about mountain lions in East Texas.

He responded that he had worked in east Texas for 30 years for TPWD on some of the most isolated country that was left conducting surveys at all times of the day and night, and he never had seen anything to make him think there were cougars, panthars, catamounts, or whatever you wanted to call them in East Texas.

The questioner simply stated, "Well you just ain't worth a damn are you?"

I learned that day that people will believe whatever they want to believe. Either way, put a pile of meow mix out on that levee and shoot that little bird butcher if he comes back.

Something else to think about... game cams are on a majority of the deer leases in Texas now. Not one pic floating around of a black cat? Really? C'mon guys. Santa Claus isn't real either. I have a good friend though who's a game warden... he actually tagged black jaguars.. they tracked one of the black jaguars one day...found him stalking a sasquatch, and the sasquatch was carring a chupacabra.

Since Cougars, Leopards, and Jaguars are all Panthers, then you just contradicted yourself.

Big a$$ tom cat

this thread needs an expert.

Actually leopards and jaguars are �panthers,� meaning they belong to the sub-family Patherinae within the Family Felidae. There genus would be Panthera. On the other hand, mountain loins, pumas, cougars or whatever you would like to call the largest cat in Texas, belongs to the sub-family Felinae within the Family Felidae. The genus of this cat is Puma.

As the post above suggested, �we need an expert,� I am not an expert on cats; however, I am 100% this is not a jaguar, jaguarundi or mountain loin.

Jaguars have been extirpated from Texas for nearly 100 years and jaguarundis are exceedingly rare in Texas and are only known along the Rio Grande as it draws near the Gulf. This eliminates these as a possibility.

Mountain loins do not carry the allele from melanistic (black color) coats. The early reports of black panthers in Texas during the colonial era were likely jaguars, which are a species possessing the melanistic allele. Therefore, this is a Felis domesticus, aka house cat.

I didn't know the Pope is an outdoorsman!

big house cat

You're wrong LL Cool J has one!