![]() It is rather ironic there is more proof for white cougars than there are black ones out there since so man attach cougars to the black panther phenomenon. In the past we have addressed other possible answer to “black panther” sightings including the jaguarundi, jaguar, melanistic bobcats and domestic house cats. For melanistic cougars to be the answer to Texas’ “panther” question there would have to be many of them and there is no proof of any of them. There are dark brown cougars but no melanistic ones we are aware of. There is one grainy black and white photo of a cougar killed in Costa Rica in the 1950s that is very dark but that photo is questionable and on close examination looks chocolate brown instead of purely black. The black cats you see in zoos and on television are all melanistic leopards or jaguars. Melanism is not uncommon in leopards in certain parts of their range as well as with jaguars. It happens in many animals ranging from squirrels to whitetail deer. ![]() Melanism is when a hyper amount of black pigment dominates coloration of an animal. The problem is there has never been a melanistic cougar observed by science either in a zoo, captive setting, killed by a hunter, mounted by a taxidermist or otherwise positive identified. The general assumption with the thousands of “black panther” sightings in Texas is that these are black or melanistic cougars. ![]()
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