A photo making rounds on Facebook appears to show a large, black feline, similar in size to a black panther (a general term used to describe melanistic leopards and jaguars), in east Texas. Jerel Hall posted an image on his Facebook page on Saturday, and it now has nearly 1,000 comments.
Hall says he lives in Huntsville, TX, a city north of Houston, not far from the state line with Louisiana.
Here’s his post:
While it certainly looks like a large black cat, wildlife experts are not so sure. Texas Parks and Wildlife told USA Today that there is no such thing as a black mountain lion. Jaguars and leopards can be black, but they don’t live anywhere near Texas.
Regardless of what experts say, plenty of comments are siding with Hall.
“I used to see them all the time when I was in kid in Caldwell, Texas. They sound like a child screaming,” wrote Samanta Luce on Hall’s post.
Another comment reads: “We used to see one all the time when we were little, but nobody wanted to believe us.”
It’s important to point out that people often mistake mountain lions for bobcats, lynx, and even common house cats.
Just last month, Oregon’s Department of Fish and Wildlife had to clarify that an alleged cougar sighting in a Portland suburb was a regular house cat. The alleged sighting caused concerns, but in the end, wildlife officials say the photo made it appear larger than it really was.
Mountain lions do live in Texas but are more prominent on the western side of the state, from parts of the Texas Hill Country, west of Austin, and down to the mountain regions like Big Bend National Park.
What animal do you think this is?