Just in case you forget, as you go out looking for cryptids, yes, animals do attack. Animals are doing what animals do. Two surfers have been killed by sharks off the west coast of Mexico this spring, and people continue to be have less than warm and fuzzy encounters. There are breaking announcements and news this week of some violent and deadly confrontations of the natural history kind. A cougar attacked, killed and partially ate a New Mexico man living in a trailer, authorities announced on Tuesday, June 24, 2008. A search party found the body of Robert Nawojski, 55, [...]
Panther Researcher Dies In Plane Crash
An internationally known expert on the endangered Florida and cryptid eastern panthers, David Maehr, 52, died young, doing what he loved, looking for wildlife. The University of Kentucky associate professor was killed on Friday, June 13, 2008, when the single-engine Piper Cub airplane he was riding in crashed mid-day near Placid Lakes Airport in central Florida. The pilot, citrus grove owner Mason Smoak, 33, also died. Maehr was the only passenger. Within the cryptozoological community, Maehr was known for his work exploring the existence of the eastern puma, and his research on the rediscovery of the Florida panther. Maehr was [...]
Neosho Black Panther: A Leopard
A Newton County, Missouri, sheriff’s deputy shot and killed a large, black, declawed cat, which turned up in a residential yard on May 19, 2008. The cat was a young male whose body was approximately 3 feet long and weighed 40 pounds. Its age was estimated at six months. An initial examination showed the claws had been removed from all four of the animal’s paws. Its fur was jet black. Steve Bircher, curator of mammals/carnivores at the St. Louis Zoological Park, has positively identified the Newton County cat as a leopard (Panthera pardus). More non-news background at: Black Cat Killed [...]
Cryptid Jaguarundi Research
Mystery felid cryptozoologist Dave Pelley writes Cryptomundo that his research on the cryptid jaguarundi (Puma yaguarondi) in Florida is ongoing. Pelley shares this update: I’ve been hot on the trail of the Florida jaguarundi for about a year now, and I think we are darn close to getting proof that a sizable population exists here in the central part of the state. Thus far I have four eyewitness accounts of a particular jaguarundi that frequents my neighborhood, as well as plaster casts and a possible scat sample (frozen!). I’ll keep you guys posted! You can see a mini doc that [...]
Black Panther Roundup
Panthers, the mysterious felid kind, have been in the news of late. Here’s a roundup. In Mississippi, the encounters are becoming so frequent the media is comparing them to Sasquatch sightings. Fancy that. Jamie Daughdrill of Brooklyn, Mississippi, is one of those area residents who claims to have proof that a black panther roams the southern part of Forrest County. He has a photo (above) of a black feline walking across his food plot that he took with his game camera. But he couldn’t find any tracks near the game camera. “All I’m saying is that it’s big and black [...]
Cryptic Cats Link Hostile Governments
It appears that elusive felines are behind a new bridge being built between two hostile governments. The governments, you ask? That would be Iran and the USA. Iran is believed to host the only 60 – 100 Asiatic cheetahs left in the wild. Some eke out a living in a forbidding terrain of jagged peaks, deep gorges and bone-dry plains in the Kuh-e Bafgh protected area in Yazd province in central Iran. The sleek and spotted cats once roamed between the Arabian peninsula and India, but their number in Iran is estimated to have fallen by roughly half in the [...]
Trailcam Photographs Rare Golden Cat
Chad Arment, noting this is not really a separate species, despite what the media is reporting, passes along this breaking news from Bhutan’s daily Kuensel Newspaper for June 11, 2008: A rare morph of the Asiatic golden cat (the ocelot morph) has been sighted in the high altitude mountains of the Jigme Singye Wangchuck national park, which nature conservationists are calling another feather in the cap of Bhutan’s conservation efforts. The ocelot morph is considered a separate species of wild cat. Two pictures of the rare ocelot morph were captured by an intensive camera trapping exercise targeted for tigers and [...]
Cryptid Long-Tailed Wildcats
The “Long-Tailed Wildcat” trapped and killed on January 16, 1922, in the Tinicum Swamp, Pennsylvania. Archival photograph, Henry W. Shoemaker, via Chad Arment. Perhaps it would be good to take a bit of a look at the reports of long-tailed spotted and striped small mystery and not-so-mysterious cats, in light of yesterday’s mention of “Long-Tailed Bobcats.” The bobcat pictured above has a short tail, but the photo shows how an allusion is created by the image of the tail merging with a back leg. Puma, young. Are there any jaguarundis (Puma yaguarondi) in the mix? Cryptozoologist Chad Arment has reminded [...]
Long-Tailed Bobcats?
In Amazing Indeed: Strange Events in the Black Forest Vol. 2, Robert R. Lyman, Sr., 1973, The Potter Enterprise, Coudersport, PA, on page 70, can be found this intriguing passage: Bobcats with Long Tails September 1951. Strange animals appear at times and no one can say for sure what they are. Such an animal was caught in a fox trap south of Wharton by Lynn Wycoff. Since it was an unusual specimen, Wykoff [name is rendered both ways in the article] decided to keep it alive. With the help of his father, he managed to free it from the trap [...]
Lima Lion Lurking
The following article appeared on local Ohio TV News Net 5, on June 6, 2008: Big Cat Sightings Reported Near Ohio City Sightings of a big cat in northwest Ohio have some families on edge. Authorities south of Lima haven’t confirmed any of the reports that began to circulate a few weeks ago. Some people said they think it was a panther. Ohio Department of Natural Resources trapper Craig Shafer said he’s pretty sure there’s a large cat out there based on the footprints he’s seen. Gary Guagenti said he spotted the big cat trotting across a field near his [...]
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