House cats, jaguars, leopards, Servals and jaguarundi are just some of the species that have melanistic (black) color morphs.
Everyone knows house cats, jaguars and leopards can be voids, but did you know other cats have black color morphs too?
The Asian golden cat, the Serval, jaguarundi, Margay, kodkod, Geoffrey’s cat, oncilla, Pampas cat, and bobcat all have melanistic variants.
Unfortunately when it comes to house cats, research supports the longstanding claim that black cats are adopted at lower rates, and are euthanized in greater numbers, than other felines. Part of that can be chalked up to superstition. It’s also due in part to the fact that black cats are more difficult to photograph.
But as these photos prove, all you need is some decent ambient light, smart framing and maybe a bit of shadow/highlight correction to help bring out a black cat’s natural features.
Image credits: Top two rows via Pexels, with photographers listed in the captions. All other photos via Wikimedia Commons. Last image (melanistic oncilla) credit Ignacio Yufera
The purveyors of the deceptive posts want you to click, share and argue with other users about the veracity of the photos.
Not only is he the rarest puma in existence, he’s more well-traveled than most humans.
The mountain lion in question has a black coat, unprecedented for his species, and has been popping up all over Facebook. He’s photographed from the passenger seat of a truck cab, his tail in an unbothered curl, crouched amid the brush near a rural road.
Some posters claim they spotted the formidable feline in Mississippi. Others attribute the image to a sister-in-law who lives near Houston or a daughter in Charleston. A user in Louisiana claimed they took the photograph near the bayou, while another places the cat in Wyoming and claims he’s the first-ever documented “shadow cougar.” (Our friend Leah of Catwoods drew our attention to the images last week after seeing posts placing the cat in the south.)
In case it isn’t obvious, all the claims are full of it.
There is no such thing as a melanistic (black) mountain lion, and the big cat in the photo has the physical characteristics of a leopard, an animal that is not native to this hemisphere, let alone this continent.
The real story here is that Facebook remains a fountain of misinformation and Meta (its parent company) doesn’t care. Unscrupulous users will do anything to get attention and the clicks that come with it, and the average Facebook user is happy to indulge them, driving clicks by resharing the hoax content and juicing its algorithmic value by engaging in endless arguments with fellow users about the veracity and provenance of the photos.
Alleged big cat sightings are perfect for this sort of thing because they pique people’s natural curiosity, there’s a whiff of danger — especially when the poster claims the animal was spotted locally — and most people aren’t aware of telltale differences between cat species.
In many ways, the blurrier and more indeterminate the photo, the better: like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster, the idea of phantom cats is most fertile in the imagination.
These days you don’t even need a photo to get in on the click-baiting action. I asked Gemini to create an image of a jaguar-like big cat walking along a rural road at night, and this is what the LLM gave me:
In the image prompt, I asked it to make it look like an amateur photo taken with a midrange smartphone camera, but if we really wanted to get artistic, it’s simple enough to add noise, maybe some motion blur and digital artefacts to the image to make it look more like an authentically crappy, rushed shot of an unexpected animal.
Here’s the result of some simple efforts to en-crapify the “photo” further:
To give the image urgency and encourage people to engage with it, I can make it local and claim it was recent. Errors of grammar, spelling and punctuation add a nice seasoning of authenticity, along for feigned concern for others as the reason for sharing:
“Folks – just wanted to tell ya’ll to mind your pets an make sure of you’re surroundings bc theres a big cat on the lose!! my cousins GF took thus friday nite on Route 9 a few mile’s south of Dennies. a real honest to goodness black panther! BE SAFE!!!”
There’s a dangerous animal on the loose in your area! You know what you have to do: share it so others can bring their pets safely inside and stop their kids from playing outdoors, at least until it looks like the predator has moved on.
It’s your duty as a good American!
Since it doesn’t seem to matter if a quick reverse image search can settle the question of where an image came from, it’ll be interesting to see if anyone lifts the above image and text.
At the very least, maybe a few people who do think to run a search will find their way here, read about the hoax, and save themselves from getting drawn into online debates about the existence of cryptid cats.
Today’s a good day to do something special for your little pal(s), and to help spread awareness that felines are sentient, intelligent animals with feelings.
Happy International Cat Day!
Today marks the 23rd annual observance of the special day, which was established by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, a nonprofit originally founded in the late 1960s to stop the commercial hunting of seals off Canada’s coasts.
Buddy sits on his vanquished foe, an alien xenomorph. “I don’t understand how these things gave humans so much trouble,” he said.
In more than half a century since, the group has expanded to an international operation with projects aimed at improving conditions for wild and domestic animals. They do wildlife rescue, rehabilitation, preserve management and more.
International Cat Day was intended to help raise awareness about cats, their behaviors and the best ways to interact with them and give them good homes.
For those of us who are already wrapped around the paws of our feline overlords, it’s an occasion to do something extra for our buddies. Here at Casa de Buddy, that means spending more time with little man, giving him catnip, and his favorite human food treat: cheese.
The thing that matters most to him is Buddy Time, when we hang out, play games with his wand toys, and eventually he snuggles up in my lap.
We hope all of you are enjoying International Cat Day and have the opportunity to spend some extra time with your furry pal(s) today. For all they do to improve our lives, a little expression of gratitude is the least we can do.
It’s the first time a mountain lion has been spotted in New York since 2011. Authorities aren’t sure if the cat is an escaped — and illegal — pet, or if it made an epic journey from the west coast.
For the first time in 14 years, there’s a puma on the loose in New York.
The wild cat was spotted on a Rochester woman’s Ring doorbell camera padding along the sidewalk in front of her home at about 4 am on Wednesday morning.
A representative from the state Department of Environmental Conservation cautiously said the agency is working on confirming the species of cat in the footage.
But the feline’s size, gait and tail are dead giveaways, despite the dark footage and fleeting glimpse: it’s a puma.
In the brief clip, the wild feline walks past a tree, giving the DEC an important context clue. Michael Palermo, a wildlife manager with the department, said his team measured the tree, allowing them to closely estimate the animal’s size by comparing the footage to their measurements.
“If, in fact, it is some large cat, we would want to question, how did it get here? It’s not impossible for a wild cougar to travel to New York; it’s happened before,” Palermo said. “Was it a captive one that may have been legal as a licensed facility, and if so, did it escape? We still need to do some work to verify anything like that.”
While pumas were once native to New York and thrived in the forested mountains of regions like the Catskills (“cat creek” in Dutch), the last verified sighting in New York was in 2011. That cougar crossed through the Empire State after an epic journey from the west coast, a stronghold for the species.
Some people who posted to a Rochester community group on Facebook are already freaking out, and pumas are widely misunderstood, so it’s important to note the facts:
Pumas are not African lions, are not closely related to them and do not behave like them
They’re not aggressive toward people. In fact, they try to stay away from humans and will go out of their way to avoid confrontation
The exceptions are when people threaten a puma’s cubs or corner the animal, giving it no opportunity to escape
Americans are 150 times more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a puma. There are only 27 reported cases of people killed by pumas in more than a century. By contrast, an estimated 4,300 to 10,000 Americans have been killed by dogs in that same time span. (Higher estimates include people who did not die immediately from dog bites, and people who died of infections or complications from bites.)
While some people and media reports erroneously call pumas “big cats,” they are not members of the panthera genus. They are felines more closely related to domestic cats and small wildcats. Accordingly, pumas can purr and meow, but they cannot roar
Pumas are also known as mountain lions, cougars, panthers, painters, screamers, catamounts, pangui, onca parda, cuguacuarana, katalgar, chimbica, shunta-haska, fire cats, California lions, ghost cats, and red tigers, among many other names.
In fact, the species has more names than any other animal. That’s because it’s adaptable with a historically wide and varied range. There are some 40 names for pumas in English and more than 80 in Spanish, Portuguese and the languages of indigenous Native American tribes.
The species is officially known as puma concolor, or “puma of one color” thanks to its typically biege fur that, unlike tigers, jaguars, leopards and even house cats, does not have stripes, spots or rosettes.
While it’s extremely unlikely the mystery cougar would pose a threat to people, Rochester police — who have fielded several reports of sightings in recent days — advise locals to keep their pets indoors and to exercise caution while walking their dogs.
Update: The DEC has officially confirmed the cat is a puma, although it was obvious from the footage.
In the meantime, a Rochester man says he saw the wild cat — and people running away from it — on Wednesday night.
Although that sighting has not been substantiated by authorities, it does illustrate the need to educate the public about these animals.
“You know, a mountain lion, it be ‘rawr.’ They be crawling and… serious,” Curtis Jones told WHAM, an ABC affiliate in Rochester.
“I am going to keep this bat right here, man, just in case,” he told a TV reporter. “I am going to protect us, I ain’t going to let nothing happen to us, nothing. OK?”
Let’s hope common sense somehow finds its way into the Facebook algorithm amid all the misinformation as the locals discuss the sightings online.
If you’re from the area, we beg you: please do not attack, shoot or chase after the puma with a baseball bat. The animal does not consider you food, is not a danger to you, and is probably scared and hungry.
That deserves special emphasis if, as the DEC’s staff have said, the puma is more likely an escaped captive than a long-wandering traveler from the western US.
Jones said he saw the puma “slithering” and hear it “rawr,” but it’s worth noting, again, that pumas are members of the genus felinae, meaning they’re genetically and behaviorally much closer to house cats and can meow and purr, but cannot roar. Despite their size, mountain lions are not true “big cats.”
As for Jones, we hope him and his neighbors give the cat a wide berth and let the authorities safely capture it, have a veterinarian evaluate, and figure out where it belongs.
“I don’t play with lions, I don’t play with tigers, bears, nothing in the wild, I don’t play with those, I promise you,” Jones told the station. “I don’t even do rollercoasters. I’m good.”
Bodega cats are the stars of a popular online series and could soon become legal in New York, where they’ve helped keep delis and small groceries rodent-free for as long as such places have existed.
Although it’s way too early to celebrate, Pennsylvania could become the fourth state to outlaw cruel declawing procedures after two lawmakers there introduced a new bill.
The Pennsylvania declawing ban proposal closely mirrors laws already passed in New York, Maryland and Massachusetts, and would outlaw the procedure except in cases where it’s medically necessary. (Although extremely rare, sometimes cats suffer from cancer of the nail bed and other maladies that necessitate surgery, but that’s a far cry from the elective declawing currently legal in 47 states.)
The state’s Veterinary Medical Association, the usual villain in these situations, is opposed to the ban. State veterinary medical associations argue that outlawing the procedure — which amputates a cat’s toes up to the first knuckle — would limit options for veterinarians and caretakers.
The veterinary medical associations, which contrary to their names do not represent all or even most veterinarians, also claim that declaw bans lead to more surrenders, but that claim has been repeatedly debunked by statistics from states and municipalities where bans have passed. In each of those cases, surrenders actually decreased, which is not a surprise to those who understand declawing, rather than “solving” any behavioral issues, actually causes cats to lash out even more because of the suffering they endure from the mutilation.
Here in New York, the Veterinary Medical Association successfully prevented declawing bans from making it out of committee for years, despite organizations like the Humane Society, SPCA, Alley Cat Allies and others wholeheartedly opposing elective declawing. Each state VMA buys influence with campaign donations, and relies on the lawmakers they support to kill declawing bans. Let’s hope Pennsylvania’s Veterinary Medical Association proves less adept at derailing that state’s bill.
The Last Cat of the Skies: The Iconic F-14 Tomcat
When I was a kid, the two Dream Machines that adorned posters on my wall were the Lamborghini Countach and the F-14 Tomcat. The Countach remains a car without equal with its inimitable, angular design that still manages to look futuristic more than half a century since the first models rolled out of the factory.
The twin-engine Tomcat is kind of like the Countach of fighter jets with its variable wing geometry, prominently angular air intakes and unique silhouette that makes it easy to distinguish even from the ground.
A Tomcat from the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) during a combat flight over the Persian Gulf in 2005. Credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Rob Tabor
Grumman’s air superiority fighter was immortalized in pop culture when Tom Cruise’s ace fighter pilot, Maverick, flew the aircraft in 1986’s Top Gun, and the Tomcat enjoyed a nostalgic encore in 2022’s excellent Top Gun: Maverick, displaying its staying power in a film that also heavily featured newer aircraft like the F-18 Super Hornet and the sixth generation prototype “Darkstar,” based on Lockheed Martin’s secretive SR-72.
The F-14 is the last of Grumman’s “cat” aircraft, after the Wildcat and Hellcat, and while it no longer fills a role in the US military, it remains a potent weapon for other countries half a century since its first flight. You can read all about the Tomcat in The Aviationist’s new feature here.
The Tomcat’s variable wings were a technological marvel when the aircraft was first released. The wings are swept forward for takeoff and landing, and typically swept backward during high speed, high altitude flight, allowing the fighter to maneuver in ways other aircraft could not. The wings can also shift to an asymmetrical configuration, allowing for unique capabilities in flight.
New York’s deli cats get their say
Bodega cats, longtime fixtures of New York’s answer to grocery stores, are enjoying a moment thanks to a major push to finally legalize their presence, and popular social media accounts featuring photographs of the beloved mousers keeping watch over their stores and snoozing in snack aisles.
A bodega cat in New York takes a siesta from his usual napping, eating and rodent-hunting duties. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Now the New York Times has a feature on the popular TikTok series Shop Cats, which features “interviews” with the neighborhood felines.
Like Buddy, they seem to have an odd fascination with Mao Zedong, and their answers don’t make much sense, but that’s part of their charm. Check it out here.
Pain In The Bud 