Of course its not accurate, we had to work off photos with only one that we didn’t release showing perspective.

We believe the body was about 1 metre, it had a 600mm tail. We were forced to use the curved tail and the 1 perspective shot to guess around 1 metre.

If we can get feral cats around 870mm from base of body-nose, then its pretty easy to believe there are animals around 1 metre.

I am always skeptical of reports of enormous black cats when the reports originate from areas where medium-to-large black cats are not native. I think that the vast majority of sightings of huge black cats are either misidentifications, wishful thinking, or outright fabrication. But not all of them. Some of the sightings cannot be explained away so easily.

Reports from areas such as New Zealand, where no cats of any kind are native, if they are true sightings, would have to be animals that were either introduced, have escaped from captivity, or feral. I am extremely skeptical of reports of feral cats weighing twenty pounds or more. Some oversized domestic breeds occasionally reach or exceed such weights, and breeds such as Maine Coon Cats and Ragdolls can be close to 3 ft long. But Felis sylvestris just does not grow that big. (Although most authorities now classify domestic cats as a subspecies of Felis sylvestris, the Old World wildcat, for several reasons, I feel that the domestic cat should be considered a separate but closely related species, Felis catus.)

That being said, New Zealand would be a true haven for a medium-to-large cat species, if one ever became established there. It has mountainous terrain that cats love, plenty of water, lots of forests, and now even wild sources of food, due to introduced prey species such as deer and rabbits.

The fact that feral domestic cats have healthy breeding populations in New Zealand is well documented. And color patterns that are uncommon in feral cats in other parts of the world, such as the butterfly (classic) tabby pattern, occur frequently in that population. Black cats are quite common within the New Zealand population too.

I do not believe that Felis sylvestris is the sole progenitor of Felis catus. The ancient Egyptians, and other ancients who kept cats, kept several species of cats as pets, vermin control, and even for hunting. We know that they kept both the African wildcat, Felis sylvestris libyca, and the Jungle cat, Felis chaus. The Egyptians also kept caracals and cheetahs for hunting, and the occasional leopard or lion as pets.

Felis chaus was also kept as a pet in parts of the Middle East and India and is still kept to this day, though not in terribly large numbers. Many features of Felis chaus lead me to believe that it is one of the main progenitors of Siamese cats and their close relatives. There are several other species of small wildcats that probably contributed to the Felis catus gene pool at one time or another, allowing for a range of recessive traits within the species.

When two different species hybridize, there is a possibility that the genes can recombine and result in new and sometimes surprising traits. Hybrid vigor, the tendency of some interspecies hybrids to grow larger than either parent species, can also occur.

As with any species, when populations are isolated by physical barriers, recessive traits that appear can compound and become fairly common. Melanism is the most common recessive trait in many species of small and medium-sized cats, incluyding Felis sylvestris and Felis chaus.

Felis chaus is about a third to a half again as large as Felis sylvestris libyca. Felis sylvestris sylvestris, the European wildcat, is about the same size but weighs a bit more. These three species, in my opinion, are most responsible for Felis catus.

Although neither Felis sylvestris nor Felis catus is known to have evolved to an extreme size in other parts of the world, (I do not believe the size reported for the Gippsland cat shot in Australia is accurate), New Zealand would be a unique environment. In no other large area have cats been introduced where there is no natural predator larger than the cat. Given that Felis catus is a hybrid species, maybe it WOULD be possible for Felis catus to evolve a giant size in a place like New Zealand, where there is no real competition (other than introduced foxes - which are, after all, generally about the size of a cat or not too much larger.

I doubt that the cats being sighted in New Zealand are black pumas; I am not convinced that black pumas, if they exust at all, are common. I don’t discount the possibility that black leopards or even clouded leopards could be living in New Zealand. Melanism is reasonably common in both species. Clouded leopards, especially, live in forested areas and often prey on birds. I wonder … clouded leopards are native to parts of Indonesia, and New Zealand is sort of like a jewel at the end of that archipelago. Could it be that clouded leopards, leopards, or Asiatic golden cats have existed in New Zealand, undetected, all along? I don’t think it’s likely, but the possibility is intriguing. Or maybe one or more of those species of medium-sized cats is a recent migrant, which has established populations in New Zealand after deer were introduced.

These are exciting possibilities to contemplate. I look forward to learning more.

By the way, mystery_man, thanks for the accolade, but I don’t consider myself an expert, just a very dedicated, lifelong student.

I mentioned Williams, also, in my previous post about The Yowie.