Caturday
OK, I'm a little mystified. I walked the dogs yesterday to the corner store. Coming back, we passed by a field in my neighborhood. It looks like it used to be a cattle field, as it has a barbed wire fence and gate, but it's overgrown now. I saw an animal in it looking back at us. At first, I thought it was a fox, as I had heard there were foxes in the area, but I've never seen one. I took out my phone, switched the camera setting, and got a little closer.
When I got close enough however, the animal turned and ran off into the undergrowth. I could tell it wasn't a fox then. It looked like some kind of big cat. It was a little bit bigger than my border collie, which weighs about 75 lbs. It had dark hair, but it wasn't completely black, not like a panther. Its wedge-shaped face had light-colored features, while the eyesockets, sides of the nose, and forehead were dark. It had a thick tail, but it looked lithe and supple. Overall, it looked like dark hair on a light-skinned body.
Since then, I've been trying to identify the animal, but I can't find anything that matches what I remember. Black big cats such as panthers are actually like mutants. They are melanistic, which is reverse Michael Jackson. Their skin and hair are black, and they can be jaguars, cougars, or mountain lions, among other things. But this cat didn't look like it had black skin. It wasn't solid black. It might have been a cougar. The nearest match to it I could find is the North American Black Panther, which is actually kind of a catch-all term and not an official species. Nobody's ever been able to catch or photograph one, so it's like Bigfoot in that a lot of people profess to see it, but can't prove it exists.
I'll eventually ask the neighbors, but I'm sure it's just going to lead to more "My cousin's hairdresser" types of urban legends. I sure as hell don't want to be one of those cranks who sees aliens cutting out cattle vaginas. Anybody have a clue what that critter could have been?
When I got close enough however, the animal turned and ran off into the undergrowth. I could tell it wasn't a fox then. It looked like some kind of big cat. It was a little bit bigger than my border collie, which weighs about 75 lbs. It had dark hair, but it wasn't completely black, not like a panther. Its wedge-shaped face had light-colored features, while the eyesockets, sides of the nose, and forehead were dark. It had a thick tail, but it looked lithe and supple. Overall, it looked like dark hair on a light-skinned body.
Since then, I've been trying to identify the animal, but I can't find anything that matches what I remember. Black big cats such as panthers are actually like mutants. They are melanistic, which is reverse Michael Jackson. Their skin and hair are black, and they can be jaguars, cougars, or mountain lions, among other things. But this cat didn't look like it had black skin. It wasn't solid black. It might have been a cougar. The nearest match to it I could find is the North American Black Panther, which is actually kind of a catch-all term and not an official species. Nobody's ever been able to catch or photograph one, so it's like Bigfoot in that a lot of people profess to see it, but can't prove it exists.
I'll eventually ask the neighbors, but I'm sure it's just going to lead to more "My cousin's hairdresser" types of urban legends. I sure as hell don't want to be one of those cranks who sees aliens cutting out cattle vaginas. Anybody have a clue what that critter could have been?