Mystery animal???

[MagsC]

I read an article a while back about sightings of what people think is an "American Hyena". It wasnt a crackpot article either, had some pretty good info.
I am sure it could be googled.
Other than that, the wolf population is increasing so who knows? In this state the wolves all used to be up north, but there are increasingly more sightings now in other parts of the state.

 

[Rare Feathers Farm]

I've seen grayish cougars.

 

[redhen]

silver fox?...

 

[Badhbh]

Quote:
No, Chupacabra has no tail

 

[pips&peeps]

Red wolf? They are skinnier looking than the grey wolf as I don't believe they have as big of a coat of hair.

They are supposed to be making a comeback in the Southern States.

 

[redhen]

ooh..scary!..if it is a wolf..you usually dont see them in the day time...which means they are pretty close to you...

...like the coy dogs we have in our neighbourhood...be careful..they'll eventually come in your yard..good luck..Wendy

 

[deb1]

Quote:
It's more of a curiosity thing for me. I got a good enough look that I would have been able to identify almost any other animal easily. It is usually easy to say, oh that was a coon or opposum, or a turkey. I have never seen a coyote other than from a good distance in Montana. I have never seen and hope like heck never to see a wolf or mountian lion here. I asked about coyote in this area a while back and was told there are coyote and red wolf around for sure. I never asked about mountian lion though. I did see a special about them on the show monster quest but that's it. I agree with the thought of maybe getting overly excited about it being so unfamiliar to me and that clouding my thought on it. Maybe it was a coyote or coydog that looked bigger with the hair ??? I think I will try to swap something on CL for a game cam and give it a go. Can you do that on land that you don't own?

Thanks for all of the responses.

Chupacabra!!! lol. I figured that one would be mentioned too. lol

I saw the cougar episode of Monster Quest also! Very interesting, especially considering that cougars used to exist in NC before the twentieth century!

When I lived in Iowa there was a few newspaper stories about a woman that hit a large cougar with her car. They showed the dead animal on the news. If I remember correctly the authorities claimed that it was roaming from another state or that it must have been someone's pet.

http://www.ketv.com/news/935809/detail.html

I found the above article on line. Its about the Mountain Lion in Iowa. The authorities were very hesitant in this article about claiming that the Mountain Lion is making inroads in Iowa but I read some other articles, at the time, that claimed that it was.

 

[foxcove4]

the red wolves also breed coyotes and form a hybrid. It would be hard to mistake it for a cat though

 

[kyle7630]

Quote:
Not sure about a hyena, I will have to look that up. I do know for a fact that there is an American Dingo. It is mainly around SC, GA, FLA, NC, and some of the other southern states. It makes it's home in swampy areas mostly. It's amazing that most people don't even know about them. I grew up thinking it was common knowledge but evidently it's not. They are more commonly called the Carolina dog. People always thought they just saw a pack of feral dogs when they would see them. No one really ever noticed that they all looked alike. A while back, some scientist trapped some from several different areas and DNA profiled them. The DNA was wolf-like / dog like but different at the same time. The scientist say that it is a seperate evolutionary strain than modern dog but still has the same K-9 root as dogs get from the wolf. The likened it to the Aulstrailian Dingo, hence the name American Dingo. It's thought that the strain originated when Native Americans(like my beautiful wife) half way domesticated some wolves and they would follow them around and hang out on the fringes waiting for some scraps. They did this long enough to seperate themselves from the wolf and follow their own evolutionary path. I'm not 100% so there may be some flaws with this. This is just what I grew up being taught along with some of what I read. You can do a search on Carolina Dog or dingo and you will be surprised on the ammount of info about them. I'm confident that this is not the culprit though. Looks way different.

 

[tntstanifer]

I have had four different sightings of what I'm 95% sure is a puma here(west TN, about 55 miles east of the Mississippi River). Actually, my husband just had a sighting this morning and I posted about it. According to http://www.easterncougarnet.org/bigpicture.html there has been no confirmed cases (DNA, bodies, pictures, etc.) east of the Mississippi, except in FL.
The very first time I saw one, It crossed the road in front of me, I slowed to a stop and it turned around and looked at me. It reminded me of a mountain lion, but smaller than I would have thought. I went to the zoo the very next week and when I saw their puma/mountain lion I knew that is what I had seen. The other times I have seen it, it ran across the road in front of me. This last sighting it was no more than 50 yards from my house, at the corner of a corn field, crouched and then sprang into the field. My husband saw one this morning cross the road and then stopped in front of him. Didn't seem scared at all! He said it was darker or more gray than the pics of the mountain lions I've shown him. The one I saw at the corner of the corn field was darker also.
We're about 5 miles from the wildlife refuge here, so hubby is calling them.