This picture has been popping up for years, its a fraud. The picture was originally from Africa.Originally Posted by GoldenBrain
Anybody heard about these little kitties? Most people I have spoke to about this say nah, there's no way, but it appears that people are sighting them all over the place. I've heard a theory that a released or several released black panthers have mated with the US mountain lion which may have spawned a hybrid that is larger than either of the parents. Kind of scary for forest hiking folks like myself. The one in the photo below was spotted in Walnut Cove, NC.
There are no panthers. Period. Panther is a common name that has no descriptive value. Panthera, is a genus name that includes Tigers, Leopards, Lions and Jaguars.
Why am I nitpicking? Because people don't know what they are referring to. Florida "panthers" are an endangered subspecies of Puma concolor. Puma concolor is what everyone calls mountain lions. They are pumas, and people should use this term and this term only because it is the only one that resembles phylogenic accuracy.
"Black Panthers" are actually either melanistic Jaguar (New World) or melanistic Leopard (Old World). There are no leopards in new world, and no jaguar in old world. When referring to black panthers, people should use jaguar, or leopard.
Jaguar (Panthera onca) do not range to the eastern US. Jaguarundi (another cat of genus Puma), can be black. But on average only reach about 25 lbs, and do not range to eastern US. Puma concolor, can be grayish in color, and can reach 120 ish lbs. This is most likely what people are seeing.
The human eye isn't evolved to detect colors at rapid speeds. Your peripheral vision is dominated by rods, which only detect black and white and low resolution detail. A dark animal, moving at speed, in low light conditions, will be nearly indistinguishable. Colors will blur, and even size will appear larger than it actually is. A puma will be indistinguishable from a black bear. And no, people don't, "Know what they saw." Humans are notorious for screwing up what they think they see. And most don't have a clue what lives in their woods (like why people have called mammalogists from my old univ in SC claiming they have margays...). Margays are really cool cats by the way. They are the only feline that can supinate their hind feet, allowing them to run down trees. And they are about the cutest thing in existence, except maybe pudu.
If there are melanistic large cats in the Eastern US, they are most certainly isolated individuals, not breeding populations. And most certainly would be releases from exotic pet trade when idiots realize they can't handle a 120lbs carnivore (this IS how breeding populations start, and why FL is so screwed up now). But that there are even these individuals present, is a huge concession. People have looked through records back to the 1600's and found no trace of these cats in the SE US; other than mis-identifications, mistaken claw and teeth marks that are actually canids, or most often recently, forgeries.
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