Texas Parks and Wildlife debunks ‘black panther’ claim

Panthers in Texas? One Huntsville resident says it’s true.

Jerel Hall, who lives in the city about 70 miles north of Houston, snapped a photo that has prompted a barrage of questions on social media and follow-up articles by national news outlets. The grainy photo, posted to Facebook on Dec. 16, appears to show a dark-colored feline that’s larger than a house cat and has a long tail.

“Well we have officially spotted a panther on our property!” Hall wrote in the post.

Hall did not immediately respond to USA TODAY’s request for a comment. He told the Houston Chronicle that the photo was taken from about 120 to 150 yards away and that he estimates the animal to be between 80 and 100 pounds.

“Growing up, I’ve heard screams like a lady before but typically those are bobcats or lynx,” Hall told the newspaper, adding that he saw a black panther chasing a herd of feral hogs nine years ago.

Wildlife officials say there’s ‘no such thing’ as black mountain lion

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is debunking Hall’s claim, saying that there is “no such thing” as a black mountain lion, officially known as the Puma concolor species. It has many different common names, including puma, cougar and panther.

The department’s mammal specialist told USA TODAY that melanistic (dark-skinned) jaguars and leopards do exist, “but of course neither of those are in Texas.”

“To note, though, there can also be melanistic bobcats. Jaguarundis, like jaguars, have not been confirmed in Texas for many decades,” said Dana Karelus, adding that the last documented jaguar in Texas was in 1948.

Karelus believes the animal in the photo to be a house cat. The officer said it is hard to confirm the animal’s species given the image quality, but that it is

“certainly not a mountain lion based on the tail length.”

“Size can be tough to tell in photos, and unless you have a good reference, ‘apparent size’ is often misleading,” Karelus said.

Black panthers and jaguarundis in Texas

Black jaguars do not exist in North America, according to the wildlife department, and no one has ever captured or killed a black mountain lion.

Mountain lions — also called cougars, pumas, panthers, painters and catamounts — are found throughout the Trans-Pecos in Texas, as well as the brushlands of South Texas and portions of the Hill Country, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s website.

Mountain lions usually have light, tawny brown fur that can appear gray or almost black, depending on light conditions, the department says.

Jaguarundis are also considered extinct in Texas due to loss of habitat. The last confirmed sighting of a jaguarundi in Texas was in Brownsville in 1986, according to the the department’s website. Slightly larger than a domestic cat, these endangered felines are mostly found in northern Mexico and Central and South America. They weigh between 8 and 16 pounds and have a solidcolored coat, either rusty brown or charcoal gray.

MAURO PIMENTEL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES A black jaguar roams in Rio de Janeiro’s BioParque zoo on Sept. 22. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department disputes that a similar animal was spotted in the state.