Alabama jaguarundi or house cat?According to my source, the low-resolution photo above was taken in a south Alabama county that borders Florida. As requested, the location will for now remain confidential. The animal is walking away from an automated trail camera. Although the location has not been positively verified, the vegetation is apparently consistent with the region. The tree to the right appears to be a live oak. Lacking scale, it is entirely possible that this is a large house cat, but note the striking similarity of the tail and hindquarters to this jaguarundi:
South American jaguarundi.House cats frequently (but not always) carry their tails higher:
Of the putative "jaguarundi" images I've seen from the Southeast, the top image here is the most compelling.
A photo like that calls for an on-site investigation before the surroundings are appreciably altered. It should be a simple matter to return to the site of the photo and re-shoot a similar photo as documentation of site authenticity. It may also be possible to place a measuring stick in the position of the cat for scale. We're working on that.
More to come. Please don't hesitate to initiate discussion in the comments.
Skeptic here...shoulders seem more pronounced in the game cam picture than I would expect from a weasel-like jaguarundi. But, I study snakes so shoulders aren't my specialty.
ReplyDeleteThat cat does seem to have prominent shoulders, I'll grant you that. But not a LOT different from the illustration up in the blog title. I got that illustration from a website that I assumed got it from the old Peterson Field Guide by Burt and Grossenheider. But I just checked my shelf copy and it's not from there. Hmmm... Maybe it's a black panther after all!
ReplyDeleteMy neighbor and I have both seen a small black jaguarundi on numerous occasions by the woods in Clearwater, Florida. It comes up to the building at night, looking for food. I leave cat food out. It's a very young thing which we thought was a black cat/weasel combination. We had to search online to identify what it was. We both have domestic cats and agree that this is not a domestic cat. We feel lucky to have seen it.
ReplyDeleteHi. We run a small camera trap project in Costa Rica. This past fall(2013) we had several jaguarundi pass through the property. We got a number of them on camera. I know they were not from the US, but the images and video may me of use for comparative purposes. Here is a video.
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/c47H5rP6rY0
And at a still here:
http://ovcamtraps.blogspot.com/2014/03/camera-trap-project-update-camera-gaea.html
Thanks.
I found this blog because i was searching for images of an unusual animal i saw in my yard. What i saw, though it was dark, most closly resembles jaguarundi, but i cant be 100% positive. I will definitly be trying to capture pictures.
ReplyDeleteCommenting here becouse i happen to live in a southwestern county of Alabama that shares a border with Florida...