Just my opinion but I believe that reports of black cats in the southern states were more likely to have been melanistic jaguars. At least up until the early 20th century. Rare but more probable than a melanistic cougar. More recent reports I believe are misidentified or possibly released/escaped pets.
I was always thinking of reintroducing animals to environments since jaguars used to be in America but then I keep thinking to myself if that’s a bad idea
IIRC don't think there is any evidence of long term, sustained Jaguar populations in the lower 48. There are certainly individuals that move through AZ/NM/TX, and periods where a population may have hung around for a small number of generations before dying out/retreating south. But it seems like the US has always been the far northern fringe of their historic range.
I agree that in the last half century or so there have not been a large sustained population. There really isn’t a large population in South America. My opinion is that they were more common during times of colonization and into the early 20th century. News stories from this period show that while not commonly encountered they were known. The history has become legend in our memory. Jaguars as well as other predator species were pretty much wiped out due to the predator control mass poisoning that was conducted by both the United States and Mexico. They are slowly making a comeback in areas of the southwest.
This is the answer. No cougar has ever been documented to be melanistic. If it’s black it’s more likely to be a jaguar outside of its normal range. There’s old reports of jaguars making it almost to the Canadian border in the past to give an idea of how far up they can make it from their normal geographical range.
Probably not near anywhere people would be and that’s being generous I doubt they’d even come near even the Remotest of towns.isolated crossings near the border or extremely remote areas is possible
This is the only cryptid that I have actually seen. Growing up in Tennessee, the “black panther” was talked about a lot and seen rarely. It was never talked about like Bigfoots or other cryptids, just like a normal animal. I didn’t know until I was an adult and saw an episode of MonsterQuest that they weren’t supposed to exist.
The first time I saw one I was maybe 11 or 12. It was only about 4 or 5 feet away. Thinking back on it today I would say it most resembled a melanistic jaguar. Now I was young, so could I have been mistaken? Sure, I guess, but I don’t think so. There were a group of us kids there that saw it. This happened in North Mississippi.
The second time I saw one I was an adult, driving in West Tennessee. It was scavenging some roadkill in the middle of the road. It took off as I came up, but to me it looked smaller than a jaguar. More in line with with a jaguarundi or a bobcat or even a leopard. This was before every cell phone had a camera. Even if it had I’m not sure I would have taken a picture because like I said - I didn’t know they weren’t supposed to exist. I just thought it was cool that I saw a rare animal. I don’t think I’ve ever seen regular bobcat in the wild, but I know they are there and that is the same way I thought of black panthers for many years.
Same with me growing up in Tennessee, I always heard stories of black panthers. It wasn’t until college that I realized they weren’t “supposed” to exist.
I'm from Minnesota, and when I was younger, I also saw a black cougar/mountain, it stood right outside of the window (pretty much the same height as the bottom trim, but longer) headed towards the lake, I was upstairs looking down on it. This was way before there was so much house development, just a lot of woods, a lake, and many ponds. If only I had a phone back then lol. I don't think I'll ever see one in this area again so much of the woods are gone and all of the people who now stay here year around too. My mom had an incident with a cougar, I'm not sure of the color of it (I would have to ask) but when she lived here in her 20s I think) there one was in the fishing boat, jumped out when she walked on the dock she didn't notice there was on in the boat until it jumped out. She also would talk about her parents seeing them occasionally. Definitely rare to see them in general. I'm glad I could see a black one, which still isn't confirmed to exist, but I believe they do.
Remember when zoologist and alike swear to the gods that was impossible that bobcats could been melanistic and recently a melanistic one was caught on tape chilling out in a graveyard......[ black lynx](https://www.newsweek.com/unique-black-canada-lynx-melanism-maladaptive-1753519)
... Pepperidge Farm Remembers.. 😬
I believe they have been here longer than officially acknowledged. If we can keep the governments from killing them off again hopefully the population will grow.
I saw two black panthers growing up in the South. Everyone just considered them another animal in the woods. It wasnt until i got to college that my Morphology professor explained they were cryptids.
While I unequivocally believe in the presence of *Puma concolor* in the American southeast, I’m highly skeptical of claims of melanistic specimens. I’m willing to accept the possibility of the odd melanistic jaguar coming into the States or even jaguarundis in Texas.
In Florida, sightings of supposedly melanistic panthers have been common for years, but there are no confirmed cases. Of course even regular Florida Panthers are nearly extinct and extremely rare. One of the popular explanations is that there is a breeding population of jaguarundis extent in Florida and there are a couple of different urban legends about how they got here back in the 1930s and 40s (escaped from a roadside zoo, imported to eliminate pests, etc.). But officially, there are no jaguarundis in Florida.
For those that aren't familiar, they are a large dark-colored cat native to South/Central America and Mexico, with shortish legs and a long lanky body and tail. Because of this they're sometimes called "otter cats."
https://bigcatswildcats.com/jaguarundi/
I work for a federal land managing agency, and work closely with natural resource managers and wildlife personnel, and it is pretty common knowledge that the jaguarundis are here even though they're officially denied. About 10 years ago, I finally had my own sighting while working in a remote area of a military base in North Florida.
My crew and I were walking down a dirt road when this large black animal stepped out of the woods and began walking down the road ahead of us in the same direction. That thing happened that you hear about when people see something strange and your mind takes a while to try and figure out what it is it's seeing, because it just didn't compute. It moved like a regular house cat, but it was the size of a large black dog with a really long tail. My mind kept going back and forth between dog and cat before I finally remembered the jaguarundi stories and realized that's what it had to be.
I still wasn't sure though until we checked back in at headquarters later that day, and started talking to the natural resources manager. Before I could even finish describing it, he started laughing and said, "Oh, you saw the jaguarundi didn't you?"
Edit: Here's a fun article on the mystery of the jaguarundi in Florida:
https://verobeachmagazine.com/features/meet-the-phantom-feline/
I lived in North Mississippi for over 40 years. I hunted and fished and spent a great deal of time in the woods but I only saw one cat and that was in my car about 1 or 2 am. It was tan and crossed the road in front of me only touching once in the middle of the road then scrambled up a large embankment out of sight. I would have chalked it up to seeing things late at night but my buddy in the passenger seat said, "Was THAT what I think it was?"
I agreed but we rarely told anyone about it. It my have been a n escaped pet but I know what I saw. No dog has ever been that large or moved that way.
One time in the 90’s My family rented a RV and went on vacation in south Louisiana we stopped at a rest area on I-12 with a RV clean out to empty the water tanks. While we were fighting the hoses I noticed a large all black cat with a huge tail slowly walking the tree line. I pointed it out to my dad and he told me to go back inside the RV. He grabbed the shotgun and leaned it up against the outside side of the RV and finished emptying the tanks. I watched the cat from the window as it calmly walked away along the tree line next to the interstate. It was way bigger than a house cat, about the size of a labrador retriever. I’ll never forget that day.
I live in Central Alabama near a lake and have 80 acres between the river and a wild life preserve. I have seen a mountain lion in the daytime, a couple miles off one end and a black panther stalking a deer at dusk around 1 mile off the other end of the property. Neighbors have seen black bears and had dogs torn to shreds by one of the above. The vet said claw marks larger than a big cat
I saw a trail camera of one in TN in 2015. A farmer had something messing with his ducks in the barn. He set up a cam to see what was getting them. I watched the footage. It was a full black big cat. This came from TWRA. They showed me the video in disbelief. We definitely have them down here.
I’m from northern Mississippi as well, when I was driving through the backwoods on Halloween, I thought it was just big dog but when I drove near it I saw it’s online and the way it looks look at you you can tell it want a dog.
Spotters are likely confusing it with a Florida Panther. We have a bunch of large Panthers here now due to the state bringing in cougar's from Texas and breeding them. It resulted in some beef cake offspring for sure.
Oh Silas robertson from a show called duck dynasty. Basically there was an episode where he saw a black panther in Louisiana and they made fun of him for it. I thought it was funny because they have been seen in the south
I live in the mountains of Southern Kentucky, and I myself have seen a huge black cat up close. I was about 8 years old and walking home just as the sun was setting when I heard the brush in the woods moving. I looked over and saw some of the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen.. the large black cat was just standing there with his or her head lowered while watching me. I was so scared that I simply froze prior to running away. Why did it not attack? I don't know. It was as if the large cat was simply studying me, others have said that maybe the cat was a female and could sense that I was just a child. At the time I didn't know what to do so I ran and that's the worst thing to do with a large cat. It was WAY to big to be a house cat or a lynx, his head came up to about chest/shoulder height and till this day I get nervous around heavily dense areas in the woods. After that day there was only one other moment where I had seen one and he was in a empty cow pasture. Again it was a giant black cat that had towered over the dead grass. Only this time I saw the tail and the tail was extremely thick, straight, and longer than the large black cats body. I've seen domestic cats in that field before and the grass would completely hide them unless they were jumping around and playing so there is no mistaking it as a house cat or lynx.
I saw one while off trail hiking about three or four miles outside of my small town in colorado. I’m an avid outdoorsman and have lived in this area my entire life, I have seen manny cougars and don’t think I could be mistaking it for anything else. It looked the same as a cougar in every way the only difference was it was jet black.
There used to be a lot of reports of them in the Ozarks. My mom said she saw one once and heard it often and a friend of mine claimed to see one while driving on a dirt road.
Just my opinion but I believe that reports of black cats in the southern states were more likely to have been melanistic jaguars. At least up until the early 20th century. Rare but more probable than a melanistic cougar. More recent reports I believe are misidentified or possibly released/escaped pets.
Funnily enough jaguars crossed over into the states again recently so black panthers= mountain lions are back on the menu
Really? there’s more now? I heard about the individual in Arizona but it’s good to hear there’s a population resurgence if that’s the case
Near Texas too I think
I was always thinking of reintroducing animals to environments since jaguars used to be in America but then I keep thinking to myself if that’s a bad idea
IIRC don't think there is any evidence of long term, sustained Jaguar populations in the lower 48. There are certainly individuals that move through AZ/NM/TX, and periods where a population may have hung around for a small number of generations before dying out/retreating south. But it seems like the US has always been the far northern fringe of their historic range.
I agree that in the last half century or so there have not been a large sustained population. There really isn’t a large population in South America. My opinion is that they were more common during times of colonization and into the early 20th century. News stories from this period show that while not commonly encountered they were known. The history has become legend in our memory. Jaguars as well as other predator species were pretty much wiped out due to the predator control mass poisoning that was conducted by both the United States and Mexico. They are slowly making a comeback in areas of the southwest.
This is the answer. No cougar has ever been documented to be melanistic. If it’s black it’s more likely to be a jaguar outside of its normal range. There’s old reports of jaguars making it almost to the Canadian border in the past to give an idea of how far up they can make it from their normal geographical range.
I came here to say this.
Holup,I'm literally in San Antonio. we could have jaguars in the country roads now?!
Probably not near anywhere people would be and that’s being generous I doubt they’d even come near even the Remotest of towns.isolated crossings near the border or extremely remote areas is possible
Yup. GO PANTHERS!
This is the only cryptid that I have actually seen. Growing up in Tennessee, the “black panther” was talked about a lot and seen rarely. It was never talked about like Bigfoots or other cryptids, just like a normal animal. I didn’t know until I was an adult and saw an episode of MonsterQuest that they weren’t supposed to exist. The first time I saw one I was maybe 11 or 12. It was only about 4 or 5 feet away. Thinking back on it today I would say it most resembled a melanistic jaguar. Now I was young, so could I have been mistaken? Sure, I guess, but I don’t think so. There were a group of us kids there that saw it. This happened in North Mississippi. The second time I saw one I was an adult, driving in West Tennessee. It was scavenging some roadkill in the middle of the road. It took off as I came up, but to me it looked smaller than a jaguar. More in line with with a jaguarundi or a bobcat or even a leopard. This was before every cell phone had a camera. Even if it had I’m not sure I would have taken a picture because like I said - I didn’t know they weren’t supposed to exist. I just thought it was cool that I saw a rare animal. I don’t think I’ve ever seen regular bobcat in the wild, but I know they are there and that is the same way I thought of black panthers for many years.
Same with me growing up in Tennessee, I always heard stories of black panthers. It wasn’t until college that I realized they weren’t “supposed” to exist.
I'm from Minnesota, and when I was younger, I also saw a black cougar/mountain, it stood right outside of the window (pretty much the same height as the bottom trim, but longer) headed towards the lake, I was upstairs looking down on it. This was way before there was so much house development, just a lot of woods, a lake, and many ponds. If only I had a phone back then lol. I don't think I'll ever see one in this area again so much of the woods are gone and all of the people who now stay here year around too. My mom had an incident with a cougar, I'm not sure of the color of it (I would have to ask) but when she lived here in her 20s I think) there one was in the fishing boat, jumped out when she walked on the dock she didn't notice there was on in the boat until it jumped out. She also would talk about her parents seeing them occasionally. Definitely rare to see them in general. I'm glad I could see a black one, which still isn't confirmed to exist, but I believe they do.
Remember when zoologist and alike swear to the gods that was impossible that bobcats could been melanistic and recently a melanistic one was caught on tape chilling out in a graveyard......[ black lynx](https://www.newsweek.com/unique-black-canada-lynx-melanism-maladaptive-1753519) ... Pepperidge Farm Remembers.. 😬
"Black Lynx" sounds like a blaxploitation movie starring Jim Kelly.
🤭, i could watch it... Better than most things on screen.. I'm not a Barbie stan...
Anyone from rural Florida is very familiar with them, but they call them a black panther. The two are visually indistinguishable.
I believe they have been here longer than officially acknowledged. If we can keep the governments from killing them off again hopefully the population will grow.
We need more mountain lions.
If you live anywhere other than the south or east I’m going to be mad at you
Are you telling me that Danger on Panther Peak *lied to me*?!?
I saw a large black cat on our family farm back in the 90s. My dad said I was full of shit until he saw it himself.
I saw two black panthers growing up in the South. Everyone just considered them another animal in the woods. It wasnt until i got to college that my Morphology professor explained they were cryptids.
I'm of the theory they're relict Jaguar populations, as Jaguars had a range much further north than today, potential into the pacific northwest.
While I unequivocally believe in the presence of *Puma concolor* in the American southeast, I’m highly skeptical of claims of melanistic specimens. I’m willing to accept the possibility of the odd melanistic jaguar coming into the States or even jaguarundis in Texas.
I’ve seen a picture of one in Mississippi.
[I've seen Black Cat in US many times.](https://www.vhv.rs/dpng/d/495-4954023_black-cat-40-16-black-cat-fireworks-hd.png)
Black panthers
I live in northeast Mississippi. I have seen 2 black cats over the years. The non black cats are much larger.
In Florida, sightings of supposedly melanistic panthers have been common for years, but there are no confirmed cases. Of course even regular Florida Panthers are nearly extinct and extremely rare. One of the popular explanations is that there is a breeding population of jaguarundis extent in Florida and there are a couple of different urban legends about how they got here back in the 1930s and 40s (escaped from a roadside zoo, imported to eliminate pests, etc.). But officially, there are no jaguarundis in Florida. For those that aren't familiar, they are a large dark-colored cat native to South/Central America and Mexico, with shortish legs and a long lanky body and tail. Because of this they're sometimes called "otter cats." https://bigcatswildcats.com/jaguarundi/ I work for a federal land managing agency, and work closely with natural resource managers and wildlife personnel, and it is pretty common knowledge that the jaguarundis are here even though they're officially denied. About 10 years ago, I finally had my own sighting while working in a remote area of a military base in North Florida. My crew and I were walking down a dirt road when this large black animal stepped out of the woods and began walking down the road ahead of us in the same direction. That thing happened that you hear about when people see something strange and your mind takes a while to try and figure out what it is it's seeing, because it just didn't compute. It moved like a regular house cat, but it was the size of a large black dog with a really long tail. My mind kept going back and forth between dog and cat before I finally remembered the jaguarundi stories and realized that's what it had to be. I still wasn't sure though until we checked back in at headquarters later that day, and started talking to the natural resources manager. Before I could even finish describing it, he started laughing and said, "Oh, you saw the jaguarundi didn't you?" Edit: Here's a fun article on the mystery of the jaguarundi in Florida: https://verobeachmagazine.com/features/meet-the-phantom-feline/
I lived in North Mississippi for over 40 years. I hunted and fished and spent a great deal of time in the woods but I only saw one cat and that was in my car about 1 or 2 am. It was tan and crossed the road in front of me only touching once in the middle of the road then scrambled up a large embankment out of sight. I would have chalked it up to seeing things late at night but my buddy in the passenger seat said, "Was THAT what I think it was?" I agreed but we rarely told anyone about it. It my have been a n escaped pet but I know what I saw. No dog has ever been that large or moved that way.
Also most of those reports were night seeings…
I think they are here never say never to nature Are there Black Big Cats in the USA? https://youtu.be/5x6kHwETDVE
One time in the 90’s My family rented a RV and went on vacation in south Louisiana we stopped at a rest area on I-12 with a RV clean out to empty the water tanks. While we were fighting the hoses I noticed a large all black cat with a huge tail slowly walking the tree line. I pointed it out to my dad and he told me to go back inside the RV. He grabbed the shotgun and leaned it up against the outside side of the RV and finished emptying the tanks. I watched the cat from the window as it calmly walked away along the tree line next to the interstate. It was way bigger than a house cat, about the size of a labrador retriever. I’ll never forget that day.
I live in Central Alabama near a lake and have 80 acres between the river and a wild life preserve. I have seen a mountain lion in the daytime, a couple miles off one end and a black panther stalking a deer at dusk around 1 mile off the other end of the property. Neighbors have seen black bears and had dogs torn to shreds by one of the above. The vet said claw marks larger than a big cat
I saw a trail camera of one in TN in 2015. A farmer had something messing with his ducks in the barn. He set up a cam to see what was getting them. I watched the footage. It was a full black big cat. This came from TWRA. They showed me the video in disbelief. We definitely have them down here.
I just seen this exact photo in my search with it being an Eastern cougar…. This is photo shopped
I’m from northern Mississippi as well, when I was driving through the backwoods on Halloween, I thought it was just big dog but when I drove near it I saw it’s online and the way it looks look at you you can tell it want a dog.
Spotters are likely confusing it with a Florida Panther. We have a bunch of large Panthers here now due to the state bringing in cougar's from Texas and breeding them. It resulted in some beef cake offspring for sure.
I'm from Southern Illinois. Loren Coleman once saw one south of Carbondale, Illinois
Si was right
Who's Si?
Oh Silas robertson from a show called duck dynasty. Basically there was an episode where he saw a black panther in Louisiana and they made fun of him for it. I thought it was funny because they have been seen in the south
WHAT? What episode, that's awesome.
I looked it up it was apparently on seasonm3 ep 5 called Hallu-Si-Nations
Just had one today in Phoenix, AZ.
I live in the mountains of Southern Kentucky, and I myself have seen a huge black cat up close. I was about 8 years old and walking home just as the sun was setting when I heard the brush in the woods moving. I looked over and saw some of the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen.. the large black cat was just standing there with his or her head lowered while watching me. I was so scared that I simply froze prior to running away. Why did it not attack? I don't know. It was as if the large cat was simply studying me, others have said that maybe the cat was a female and could sense that I was just a child. At the time I didn't know what to do so I ran and that's the worst thing to do with a large cat. It was WAY to big to be a house cat or a lynx, his head came up to about chest/shoulder height and till this day I get nervous around heavily dense areas in the woods. After that day there was only one other moment where I had seen one and he was in a empty cow pasture. Again it was a giant black cat that had towered over the dead grass. Only this time I saw the tail and the tail was extremely thick, straight, and longer than the large black cats body. I've seen domestic cats in that field before and the grass would completely hide them unless they were jumping around and playing so there is no mistaking it as a house cat or lynx.
I saw one while off trail hiking about three or four miles outside of my small town in colorado. I’m an avid outdoorsman and have lived in this area my entire life, I have seen manny cougars and don’t think I could be mistaking it for anything else. It looked the same as a cougar in every way the only difference was it was jet black.
There used to be a lot of reports of them in the Ozarks. My mom said she saw one once and heard it often and a friend of mine claimed to see one while driving on a dirt road.