WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

Search This Blog

WATCH OUR WEEKLY WEBtv SHOW

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON
Click on this logo to find out more about helping CFZtv and getting some smashing rewards...

SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER



Unlike some of our competitors we are not going to try and blackmail you into donating by saying that we won't continue if you don't. That would just be vulgar, but our lives, and those of the animals which we look after, would be a damn sight easier if we receive more donations to our fighting fund. Donate via Paypal today...




Friday, December 10, 2010

Mystery Trail Cam Creature

Mystery Trail Cam Creature
This photo was taken by a motion sensor trail cam in western Kentucky on 10/16/2010 at 10:37 AM. My brother set up the cam and caught the image. He showed it to game wardens and many other people and everyone said they had never seen such an animal.

Some suggested it was some kind of monkey. I heard all this before I saw the photo for myself. When I did finally get to see it, it hit me right off. This is a cat. A house cat. It looks like a big ol' tom cat. The only other suggestion that was made that I might believe is it could be a "Fisher Cat."
I looked it up on the web and viewed many photos and am still not convinced that this is a common house cat out roaming around. The hair parts down the middle of the tail and I have seen many tomcats with tails just like that. They can also have very long tails. I would like to somehow get this mystery solved. While I think it's a tomcat, what do you think?
--Keith

This story originally appeared on the Paranormal Buffalo newsgroup, and appears courtesy of Rick. Thanks mate.

6 comments:

Nathan Hall said...

My very first thought was that it looks like an ant-eater. http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/farg/harry/bio/zoo/anteatrg.htm Quite a ways from home if it is.

Retrieverman said...

There are fishers in West Virginia. However, they are in the Allegheny Highlands of West Virginia-- where the mountains are very high and there are porcupines and American red squirrels for them to hunt.

They are on the borders with Maryland and Virgnia, not Kentucky. And it's Western Kentucky--a really long way from the fishers in West Virginia.

I think we have nice, large, domestic long-hair (Felis silvestris catus).

Retrieverman said...

Here's a photo of a gray fox and you can see the tail:

http://www.thevlm.org/files/Images/gray-fox.jpg

Retrieverman said...

It could be a gray fox, but gray foxes have ridge of dark hair that run through the middle of the tail. They also move in a very cat-like fashion. I saw one chasing rabbits at a high speed at a distance, and I thought I had seen a small cougar.

But gray foxes do not have darker bellies and legs.

Syd said...

It is such a pity that the people who set up these cameras, don't have the foresight or intelligence to lay down a number of measuring sticks (broken branches / twigs) of known length, within the cameras field of view, to get at least some idea of the size of a creature passing by.
Going back to the photo, my immediate thoughts are that this creature is Canine rather than feline and certainly not a monkey.
I would suggest that we are maybe looking at something along the lines of Bernese mountain dog. Though there are quite a few other possibilities that carry the tail in a similar way, not least of which would be a black lab crossed with long coated GSD. A friend of mine had one of these and it could very easily have passed for the critter in the picture.
So much would depend on the creatures size and as there is nothing to give a sense of scale in the picture we are pretty well lost. Even very basic data such as the height of the white post, width of the path, length of the branch in the foreground, etc., would have been helpful.

Unknown said...

i would have to say this animal is feline, if you look at the hind legs the thigh above the hock area is to long and slender for canine, and also how it steps with the front legs, its looks way to eligant for a canine and the front legs look slightly bowed which also suggests feline,i think the hair is probably parted maybe from getting wet? altogether i think the animal is to long slender and eligant looking to be anything other than a large kitty cat probably a tom cat...