I agree that fossil evidence is tricky and I’ve said it here before. I’ve always thought that to say lack of fossils means a creature did not exist is a somewhat faulty argument for the most part. The fact is that the vast majority of animal remains never get anywhere near fossilizing, most of them falling victim to decomposition and the work of scavengers long before then. Fossils are a very rare thing, needing very specific conditions to form, and so it is hard to base any argument against a creature’s existence upon a lack of fossils.

Not only is their formation rare, but fossils can also be found where no one has looked or where it is not technologically or economically feasible to conduct an extensive search (like under the sea). So this means that even if the evidence IS out there, we just may not have stumbled across it yet. There are absolutely many creatures that have existed on this for which we have no fossil record yet, and for which may actually never even find it at all.

It is also worth keeping in mind that even when fossils HAVE been found, sometimes they are not recognized for what they are until much later. There have been new whole new species discovered based on fossils that had already been uncovered and stored away, only to be re examined years down the line and found to be something different (sometimes quite significantly different) than previously thought. It often makes me wonder if we don’t already have fossils of some cryptids stored away somewhere that just haven’t been recognized for what they are.

The only time I become doubtful about creatures with regards to fossil evidence (or lack thereof), is when not only is a creature proposed for which no fossils exist, but a whole evolutionary line of animals is suggested for which nothing close compares in the records. I’m willing to agree that animal fossils can go undiscovered, but to say that a whole line of animals and all of their relatives could be completely absent from the fossil record is a little harder to swallow for me. It is one thing to say that a creature’s fossils haven’t been found yet, but it is quite another to say that a particular animal evolved and left not even a single hint of any intermediate species that may have existed. In cases like these, lack of fossils can make me quite skeptical.

Anyway, back on the big cats, the problem I see with fossil evidence in this case is that P. Atrox fossils HAVE been found. Their existence is not in dispute, and the animal DID exist. It’s just that, like Kittenz said, the fossil record stops thousands of years ago and no newer fossils have turned up. It doesn’t mean they are not there, but it is curious.

I tend to agree that it is likely the reports represent escaped exotics, but I am definitely interested keeping an open mind on the matter and looking at the evidence presented. I really just want to get to the truth, so I still do consider the arguments that relic populations of these prehistoric cats might exist. I tend to doubt it for the reasons some of the others here have stated, but I would love to be wrong and I am not ready to discount the possibility altogether just yet.

But I don’t really think that’s a factor in this case. Here’s why I think that, say, the sasquatch and yeti are worthy of scientific attention but an American native lion isn’t (until I’m shown otherwise).

1. The former two animals have left a significant amount of physical evidence (tracks; scats; blood; hair; etc.). The only reason this evidence can’t suffice to prove their existence is this: you need proof of the animal *before* you can conclude that its sign is present, i.e., you need a referent for the sign. The evidence I am talking about has been left, however, under compelling circumstances, and frequently appears significantly different from that left by recognized animals (and very similar to that left by known primates). For the lion, what do we have?

2. As kittenz notes, atrox is considered to have been, from evidence available, similar to the African and Asian lions in its habits, e.g., it’s considered to be social, a large-game hunter, and an almost-exclusive carnivore. To this day, African and Asian lions claim human beings, not in self-defense but for food. It seems unlikely to me that unexplained disappearances of humans would go on for centuries without being traced, ever, to a yet-uncatalogued carnivore’s activity if indeed one were responsible (as from the available evidence we should expect to be the case if it were present). There is copious evidence that the sasquatch and yeti virtually never harm humans, so we wouldn’t expect to see that.

3. Lions – as with other native American animals, with the significant exception of the sasquatch – had analogues among animals European colonizers were familiar with. I would expect the Native Americans to have quickly presented anecdotal evidence (as they did for hairy hominoids), and I would have expected colonists to take them seriously (as they didn’t for hairy hominoids), as lions would be an animal they wouldn’t have trouble accepting. Look what they called Puma concolor as soon as they encountered it. Actually, they used both panther and lion, both terms, and animals, they were familiar with.

Possibly remnant populations of P. atrox or other very large felids survived for longer in some areas. Maybe for much longer - maybe even to this day in some extremely remote locations (and I’m thinking unexplored regions of South America when I say that). But I just do not believe that such a large, hypercarnivorous, probably social predator could survive undetected to this day in the USA. Certainly not in settled-for-centuries Virginia. I think that if this person saw a lion, it was probably a escaped or abandoned former captive lion.

As to the possibility of males and females of P. atrox being different colors - I don’t buy it. People once thought that about black & spotted leopards, black & spotted jaguars, and tawny & gray jaguarundis too, until they became better-studied. But there is no known living example of a feline in which the males and females are different colors. Impossible? I would never say impossible . It’s an interesting idea. But very unlikely.

ofcourse, i’ve been thinking the same thing, fossils are extreamly difficult for the enviroment to make, let alone find millions of years later, or thousands, dosn’t matter.

the main thing is that people don’t think logically, even so called scientists and skeptics don’t think of that, glad im not the only one.

in the end, for all we know bigfoot and deloy’s ape could have traversed the americas for thousands of years, with out any knowledge of thier existance, same with atrox, could still be living, they were as the fossil record clarifies one of the smartest felids ever. thier absence from tar pits makes them smart enough to know that tar is a death trap unlike the smilodons at the time. besides that look at the ceolacanth! that stayed at the bottom of the ocean for millions of years, and they got bigger when all alone at the bottom of the ocean, but atrox could have gotten smaller to adapt to its enviroment.

and just like any animal the melanistic gene is in its mutatable DNA, but even though many “experts” say even if the Atrox does still exist it would not be in an enviroment sutible for the mutation to live on, a black cat would stick out like a sore thumb, but what if they where extreamly noctournal hunters, then black would be not only a good camo, but a usabel trait in hunting. so i guess that blow sthat skeptic theory right out of the water…

JTM, enter cryptic realms…

As anyone who spends a great deal of time in the forest can attest you don’t see bones lying around from dead deer, elk, bear, raccoons, etc; skulls, because the bones in the skull are harder, but practically no complete skeletons. Shoot, ask a rancher in the West, how long the bones of a cow that dies out in the open will last. Why is this? Most bones are taken by other animals as a source of calcium and those animals don’t get decay very quickly in nearly all climates. Anything exposed to air decays, so the only way you can have fossils is for something to cover the bones fairly quickly to prevent air getting to them, usually mud, sometimes lava. Then that mud/lava has to be covered by more to prevent it from being washed away.

There is a reason most fossils are discovered in ‘fossil beds’. That is because something cataclysmic happened to kill many animals at one time and then covered them up.

While there is no way to prove it I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if there aren’t many species that have existed on this planet that we have no record of because they weren’t in the wrong place at the right time and the bones they left just decayed right back into the ground. So don’t use the excuse, ‘there is no fossil evidence’ as a reason to say something doesn’t exist.

Also sometimes the “experts” are wrong about something having disappeared. Case in point, for years it has been taught that while horses did exist in North America in pre-historic times, whatever that is, they had died out and weren’t seen again until the Spaniards returned with them. I just read recently that idea is taking a serious hit because the appaloosa of the Nez Perce is not related to any horse of the ‘Old World’. Not only that but historians are learning from old records that the Native Americans were not one bit surprised when they saw men on horseback; only way that could happen is if they had knowledge of men who rode horses.

Look: if your reading of the evidence has you thinking Bigfoot could be real, you have de facto signed on with the underdogs.

It’s just that the lesson of the sasquatch is: you better compile a lot of evidence before you bring it to science’s doorstep. Because a lot of science’s hardheadedness is what’s best about it. Science doesn’t chase unicorns.

I thought that eastern cougars being escapees was a crock, until I found out how many freakin’ people keep big cats. A totally plausible sighting could be a totally plausible escapee.

Whatever it is will require – as we have seen – more than anecdotes to confirm it.

(Like tracks. Lots of tracks. How many giant felid trackways have been documented on this continent? Other signs than sightings start to lend the issue credibility.)

the day i read the book mysterious america my life as a would be cryptozoologist changed forever.

any how, since that genius chapter on atrox, i began to notice that your theory fit very well.

i mean i kept looking, and found more and more black cat sitings with maned lions accompanying them, or a maned male with tawny female and a few black kittens.

this is just another example of how may i quote ian malcome from Jurrasic Park “that life will find a way”

ps: i reading the book Loch, the one in which you praised it as being up there with The Lost World and King Kong one of the best cryptofictions i’ve ever read…