Is this the Emmaville Panther?That's what the folk over at the Invasive Animal CRC are wondering after they received these eye-popping photos of a mummified monster moggy discovered underneath a farmhouse near Canberra in the ACT.
Well, tongue-in-cheek we suspect! While we're sure they're curious as to how a domestic cat could get so big - its dried mummified husk measures @ 20 inches from nose to the base of its tail (one imagines it was a reasonably hefty beast in its prime) - we're reasonably confident they don't really believe it's the sort of 'big cat' being sighted across Australia.
But it's one bloody BIG cat - at least twice the size of your average domestic cat (and when compared to resident CFZ moggie Otto's generous proportions, it does give one more than 'paws' for thought).
Read more here: http://www.invasiveanimals.com/invasive-animals/panther.htmlasive-animals/panther.html
Left: Otto the great, living large.
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Posted By CFZ Australia to Centre for Fortean Zoology Australia at 5/19/2010 03:29:00 AM
Actually one of the more unlikely-sounding aspects of Australian Big Cat research is the repeated statements that there are not only unexpectedly large, but actually monstrously outsized examples of Felis domesticus running around in Australia, some of them almost the size of small leopards. 18 inches high and a yard long not counting the tail are dimensions repeated in different statements. And their fur tends to black although most are probably grey-tabby tigers.
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