Comments on: New “Lion” Sighting in Tennessee

By: cato9tails

cato9tails — Sat, 03 May 2008 01:53:38 +0000

Also as Drew S mentioned this kitten was a plain dark brown (no spots of any kind)

By: cato9tails

cato9tails — Sat, 03 May 2008 01:50:27 +0000

Hey, I Googled the wild cats to try and figure out what I saw running across the road here in Kentucky (we are about 30 miles north of the Tennessee border)… this is how I ended up here and what I saw has the tufted tail like the “mystery cat” photos. The tail is white underneath. The ears looked like rounded cub ears. The bobcat and lynx baby photos I looked at all had the stumpy tail (not sticking up like the photo here). My husband think I’m nuts too, as I also saw a bear cub not too long ago and he told me it must have been a dog. Turns out the bear lives in a cave near the lake.

By: Loren Coleman

Loren Coleman — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:09:50 +0000

Don’t forget those beautiful tufted ears on caracal and lynx, which are two wonderful examples of similar evolutionary solutions for the need to pick up sounds in the deserts of the sands and snows.

By: kittenz

kittenz — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 14:00:21 +0000

Actually, caracals are no longer considered to be lynxes, nor to be within the lynx lineage. Instead they are classified in the African Golden Cat lineage, and the similarity to lynxes is probably due to both species having evolved for lightning speed and power when jumping to catch their respective prey.

By: harleyb

harleyb — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 00:59:32 +0000

I live in middle TN and drive along I-65 all week long. I have not heard of this particular sighting until now. I have had stories told to me about sightings in other parts of the state, so it is definetely some strange animals in my state.

By: Drew S.

Drew S. — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 22:13:36 +0000

Bobcats can get much bigger than most people think. Up to four feet long and up to a foot-and-a-half tall at the head (yes, their height is measured at the shoulder, but someone dirving down the road isn’t going to be looking at that, especially if the head is up and looking around).

Granted, such a bobcat would be a very large one, but not unprecedented.

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 14:29:18 +0000

Kolobe- Excellent information on lynxes! As for the last part of your comment about keeping these types of animals as pets, it pretty much stands true for most wild animals. When kept as pets, we tend to anthropomorphize them and think that they are our buddies, but what we fail to understand is that in the case of big cats, they are PREDATORS. They were born to hunt. They have not been domesticated and selectively bred for generations like house cats and dogs have been and therefore have strong natural instincts that can make them dangerous. Even professional animal trainers have to be careful around their charges as I’m sure Sigfried and Roy will attest to.

They don’t even have to be large predators to be dangerous. I once kept an orphaned baby raccoon as a pet, nursed it all the way to adulthood. As it got older, it got more and more vicious towards being handled until it was no longer safe as a pet. This can sometimes cause the problem of people releasing their pets into the wild, although I would hope that no one would do that with a pet lion!

By: lokilistens

lokilistens — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 09:40:27 +0000

Looks a bit too large for the bobcats in that area.

By: kolobe

kolobe — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 07:51:55 +0000

No ways a lynx (caracal, same species, lynx being the incorrect name given, know in South Africa as the Rooikat or translated the red cat) forequaters are to muscular, lynx have much smaller forequaters and this animal is far more muscular than any lynx I have seen. Lynx are slim due the amount jumping they do after birds in flight.

Caracal (lynx) are active mainly at night and early evenings and are almost never seen during the day, particularly in areas which have constant traffic and humans walking around. I have them living around our house on the game farm and they regularly take our small domestic and farm animals, you might be lucky to see them at night under spot lights (usually a red beam spot light). I have only been very lucky to see one during the early evening after a number of years living on a game farm. They are extremely secretive.

You cannot at any distance confuse a lynx for a lion (any lion), no matter what distance is involved, a lynx stands up to 46inches (and thats a big one) at the shoulder, is far less muscular and has white on its belly and chest and is far more “red” in colour, they would stand tall under a lions belly and the black ear tufts are a dead give away. Lynx are mainly found in rocky or mountainous areas where they lay up during the day in crevices etc. Use this link to read about them, http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_caracal.html. They make good pets till they are about a year old and then become very aggressive and will return to the bush on thier own, particularly males.

No they dont taste good either.

By: Drew S.

Drew S. — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 06:14:57 +0000

Without question this is a bobcat. The tail is a dead giveaway. I live in Louisiana and they’re all over the woods down here. They can get as long as four feet, which isn’t small. I don’t doubt the sincerity of the witness, but it’s simply a bobcat.

They have wildly varying coat patterns that range from plain dark brown to highly stylized spot patterns that look like a leopard, so if it was a bigger example of the species with a very light pattern, there might be some confusion, but when it doubt look at the tail.