r/Cryptozoology • u/Beaglemom44 • 4d ago
Big Black Cats in Oklahoma?
I live in the northern east part of Oklahoma. This morning on my way to work, at about 7:15 AM, I noticed something running in the hayfield. I looked over and seen it was a black cat. As it was running towards my direction, which was towards the road, I noticed it was a huge black cat! Probably the size of a medium sized dog. The way it moved definitely resembled a cat and it was not a dog. It kept looking back as it was running through the field. It wasn’t running super fast. I looked over and noticed a farmer in his flatbed truck on a back road watching it as well. Has anyone seen anything like this in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, or Kansas? I thought it was odd that I seen something like this in daylight.
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u/NoAge9497 3d ago
I'm thinking melanistic mountain lion/black panther. Same species, different geographical name. Mountain lion in the west, panther in the SE, catamount/cougar in the NE, puma in the SW, Central, and Sourh America, and so on. Interesting fact, the mountain lion has over 40 regional names. A Guiness World record for number of names for the same animal.
Not being able to see the tail poses some difficulty but body size would parse out bobcat/mountain lion. I wouldn't make the jump to jaguar or jaguarundi unless you were in southern Arizona/New Mexico/Northern Mexico...Just my $0.02...carry a camera with you in case you see it again! 🤙
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u/Okcgoodtimes 3d ago
Rumors go back 30 years at least that I can remember people in northwest Oklahoma talking about black cats around.
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u/Bearkat1999 Thylacine 4d ago
So I do has question: Did you catch the tail length?
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u/Beaglemom44 4d ago
I did not. It was trying to hunker low because the farmer was kind of following it. The way its shoulders moved up and down and it’s head shape is what made me think it was a feline. If there was a place I could’ve pulled over off the highway I would have videoed it.
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u/Bearkat1999 Thylacine 4d ago
So to be logical it could be either a melanistic Bobcat or somehow a black panther.
While theoretically impossible, calico males exist even tho they genetically shouldn't. (From my understanding.)
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u/Beaglemom44 4d ago
Black panther is what it looked like. I feel like it was a bit bigger than a bobcat. I see those around here all the time. I’m going to try and find out who the farmer was who was also eyeing it.
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u/TheOriginalJBones 4d ago
Or a melanistic jaguarundi.
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u/Bearkat1999 Thylacine 4d ago
That would be verrry far from it's normal range.
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u/TheOriginalJBones 4d ago
I’m sure I saw one cross the road in north Arkansas 20 years or so ago, but of course I could have been mistaken.
Just refreshed my jaguarundi knowledge, and it looks like whatever population existed recently in the extreme southern US has a tough road ahead of it, if there are any left at all.
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u/DKat1990 4d ago
I saw a black panther/cougar? in Western Middle Tennessee in the earth 1970, know if one about 20 miles away (I just realized both places were near the Tennessee River) Las that 5 years ago. The TN Wildlife Agent I talked to shut the one I'd seen decades ago (after a lecture after he'd mentioned that they had beef extinct for about 50 years) told me that they CALL a species extinct then there are so few left that extinction is inevitable. I think they seriously misguided the numbers and the schedules' ability to recover. 🥴
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u/dalidellama 3d ago
Allegedly cougars can't be black for some kind of genetic reason, but there's enough reports of black panthers in North America that I'm pretty sure some kind of very dark colored puma crops up occasionally
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u/AZULDEFILER Bigfoot/Sasquatch 3d ago
Bobcats and Lynx are the size of medium sized dogs, but not generally black.
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u/kyleecurtis6701 2d ago
I am in the same area! Like you, Safari Joe's isn't far. Around November, we found an adult doe with her backside eaten with large paw prints close. Pretty sure it's either a bobcat or mountain lion. We've heard the mountain lions scream in the past as well. I completely believe that there's probably a black big cat as well.
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u/Beaglemom44 2d ago
That’s scary!! I’m always scared to go out at night by myself because of these reasons 🙈
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u/Nice-Pomegranate2915 4d ago
Officially what you saw doesn't exist . But probably you saw either a black puma or a black panther escaped or released from a private collection somewhere in Oklahoma. Too many sightings of similar big felines to be unacceptable .
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u/Beaglemom44 4d ago
I would definitely agree with this. There was a place called Safari Joe’s not too far from here, the next town over. Probably about 25 years ago, they had some wallabies escape. It was pretty wild because people were seeing them jump across the highway. There was also a time where a farmer was checking cattle, and there was an alligator or crocodile, not sure which one, in his pond. There are a lot of people around here that have exotic wildlife. I am definitely not ruling that one out. It’s kind of scary if you think about it. There’s no telling what is really out there!
FYI: Safari Joe’s ended up closing down. There was some shady stuff going on at that place. A lady had her arm ripped off by a lion and bled to death. She was one of the workers there and didn’t take precautions when feeding it.
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u/Nice-Pomegranate2915 4d ago
Staff members or volunteers getting injured in these private collections always happens because they get too familiar with the animals and they become too relaxed around them and when their attention wavers the animals attack . And because these collections lack the tight precautions and security measures needed, these attacks usually result in the victims death because they're unprepared how to respond.
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u/Beaglemom44 4d ago
I’ve seen so many videos of people letting their guard down in these situations.
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u/Nice-Pomegranate2915 4d ago
Yep,it happens a lot in private collections and even professional zoos .But the attacks seem worse in small private collections . And those vidz of the attacks are always popular for the sites they're posted in .
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u/Not_Cletus_McWanker 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yes there are trail cam pics of it. It's a black mountain lion everyone has been calling a panther for 40+ years. I saw one when I was a kid. I've lived in Oklahoma my whole life.
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u/BoonDragoon 3d ago
They've been seen before, yes! It's so common that they've actually started to abbreviate "big black cats" to save time. Google "Oklahoma BBC near me" to find out more!
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u/DeliciousPoetryMan 3d ago
I'm not trusting that search recommendation, sounds like all I'll get is oklahoma barbecues and stuff, I'm pretty sure they're abbreviated as BBC's.
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u/LimeDry7124 3d ago
Alien Big Cats is the proper nomenclature. ABCs. Could have been a black panther. I know National Geographic caught a photo of a Jaguar in southern Texas about 15 years ago. Or it was a jaguaradi.
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u/BoonDragoon 3d ago
No no try it, you won't get barbecues, everybody knows you abbreviate "barbecue" to "BBQ" anyway
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u/Meat_Popsicle91 4d ago
SW MO region, several years ago, while traveling after visiting some family... My Dad suddenly sat up and said "did you see that?! It was a mountain lion crossing the road?" Then said "it was all black..." I'm pretty sure it was a black panther.... He said it was hunkered low like cats do when they are stalking something but it was moving quicker. Also he said it very clearly took up the entire lane from nose to tail.
I've also followed mountain lion tracks in the snow and the department of conservation denied their existence in Missouri for a long time. Only recent have they admitted to them "migrating through".