Description
To a person who might not be that involved in wildlife, this animal does not look much like a cat or at least the cat with which we are familiar: the domestic cat. Certainly, the photographs bear this out. It somewhat has the appearance of a weasel or an otter (or perhaps a marten) at first glance, but the video at the base of this page, despite being not of the best quality, show us a small wildcat albeit one with a rangy, gangly body, small head, small ears, long tail and a heavily ticked (agouti gene) coat. The heading photo below shows off the banding in the individual hairs.
The ears sit substantially on the side of the head and as mentioned are small. Perhaps a cat with ears that are almost an opposite to those of the serval. In addition, unusually for a wild cat, there are no white or light spots (ocelli) at the back of the ears, which serve a communication function (to signal an aggressive mode).
As I said the coat is ticked and there are two colour types (“phases” as the experts have called them). The colours are (a) grayish (“gray morph” – “morph” means: one of the distinct forms of a species) and (b) brownish (see above). The gray colour varies from gray with white ticking (as opposed to the yellow ticking that can be seen in the photograph below) to brownish black and sometimes black, while the brown varies from tawny to bright chestnut. The chestnut colour is shown below and the darker brownish black above.
This is a small wild cat species weighing from 3.75 kg (in Belize the lower end of weight range and a female) to 7 kg in Suriname (a female). 7 kg is 15.4 pounds and 3.75 kg is 8.3 pounds. The average domestic cat weight covers a similar scale so this cat is the size of a largish domestic cat – see Largest Domestic Cat Breed.
Thanks Damien. Others have said the same thing. You are not alone.
I know for a fact jaguarundi’s live in North Florida because I have twice sighted them here in the Tate’s Hell. Those persons who say the don’t live here, don’t know what they are talking about.
I have personally seen a Fischer cat in SE Louisiana. And I have the fur to prove it. I kept it in a zip lock baggie. I have tried many times to have the fur tested. LSU and LDWF mostly but could never get anyone to do it.
However, I was deer hunting , on my parent’s property,in a fairly well concealed ground blind on a very old logging road that was no longer in use and just about completely grown over. But you could still see down it pretty well. Hence, the ground blind. When it was just about dark I see this jet black animal sleaking its way toward me at around 70 yards I’d say. So I raised my rifle to see what it was through the scope and that’s when he busted me. I have no idea how he saw me but as soon as my eye got to the eyepiece he bolted into the woods in one smooth graceful motion. I freaked out because I had no idea what the heck it was. It was way too big to be a house cat or bobcat for that matter. And also it’s tail was proportionally way too long for its body compared to a house cat. But it was smaller than a cougar. I told a friend of mine and he thought I saw a giant Ferrell cat. But, there are too many coyotes around there for any cat besides a bobcat and I have never seen a ferrel cat before then or since the encounter. So, I thought maybe it was a juvenile cougar. Ive spoken to an old timer who said he has seen black cougars in the area twice before but I chaulked that up to a fish story.
Anyway, not too long after the incident I was coming out of the woods. After hunting a different spot than the ground blind. But, where I emerged from the woods was not too far from where the sighting was. And as soon as I got out of the woods I came across some scat. Usually I wouldn’t care about that but this had jet black fur in it. Not hair, but super soft and clean black fur and quite a bit bit of it. I could not come up with any animal on the property that has jet black fur nothing. Not to mention how soft it was. I would actually say softer than a mink. And I ruled out big foot because there were no giant human bare feet prints on the ground next to this tiny racoon sized poop. So I picked up the scat/ fur and put it in a baggie. And I still have it today. I thought that maybe a coyote ate someone’s cat. But there were no cat bones or chunks of hide etc. Actually I thought it looked like a cat’s scat that had licked a bunch of its fur and swallowed a stomach full. I have always kept it because I still don’t “know” what it was or is. I always hoped that it was a new species of black fur big foot with small feet and don’t weigh a lot.because of the no track thing. I looked all over the internet for someone to test the fur simply to settle my curiosity. The only place I found did forensic hair analysis for trial evidence etc. and they wanted $500. That was years ago so I am sure they cost more now. And of course I didn’t have it performed because $500 is a little much just to satisfy my craving to know what it is. If you would like to prove me wrong that what I saw was not a Fischer. I can send you a portion of the the fur and either you can test it or get someone else to test it. All I want is to know what species it was or is and let me name anything new!!!!!
Nice sighting. It is on record now. Thanks for sharing James.
Retired Turkey hunter of 50 years I called in
many a coyotes and bobcats.One morning while
hunting in Mobile County,Al.I had a jaguarundi
run up within 30 feet of me,he was black with
burnt orange spots scattered on his body.
There’s no doubt that I had met an animal I had never seen in the woods before.
Sounds like a jaguarundi. Of all the American states, Florida is the place where the jaguarundi is most likely to be seen although officially this cat species does not live in the USA. Thanks, Demi, for your comment. Interesting.