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Working on the Double Creek fire, solo cold trailing an extremely remote and rugged edge of the burn, I spotted this wolverine and quickly realized by color, gait and size that it wasn't a young black bear. I then realized it was feeding on a mostly eaten deer carcass and was alone - it quickly moved off. No tracks were found but it was poor tracking country. I wish I had better photos but at least my cell phone was handy and I believe there's enough diagnostic about these three images to validate as a definitive sighting.

This animal was rescued off the beach by the Marine Mammal Stranding Network and is currently on the way to Seattle for rehabilitation. The Guadalupe Fur Seal is the only species that the stranding network currently picks up for rehab, because they are so far away from their normal range that there survival is compromised.

There were actually two bobcats here, getting a bit shirty with each other. Eventually the larger of the two drove the smaller one away. I suspect the second set of four photos is of a different cat than the first set, but I'm not certain. I saw the small one run off out of the corner of my eye. I think it was the cat in the first four photos, but that might have been the bigger one, and thus the same in all eight photos.

NUMBER: 20130121
SPECIES: Panther, Puma concolor (Linnaeus, 1758)
SUBSPECIES: North American Panther, Puma concolor couguar Kerr, 1792 [formerly Florida Panther, Puma concolor coryi Bangs, 1899]. Only 1 subspecies is recognized in North America; however, it has been extirpated in eastern North America, except Florida.
DISTINCTIONS: Long, thick tail, large head, deep (not fat body), very muscular legs.
SIZE, DEVELOPMENT: body ~1.0-1.2 m (3.5-4 ft) long (estimated), immature
DATE, TIME, DURATION: 21 January 2013, early morning, 2-3 minutes
LOCALITY: near John Prince Park, Lake Osborne in Lake Worth, Florida (USA)
LATITUDE, LONGITUDE: 35°35’30.12” N, 80°4’40.44” W (26.5917, -80.0779)
HABITAT: in open field near woods
REPORTED TO: Florida Panther Project, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. They said the specimen was a Domestic Cat, Felis catus Linnaeus, 1758, and did not investigate. Obviously, it was not a Domestic Cat. The tail is too thick and held in the wrong position. The head is too large and the wrong shape. This animal was known, as a mystery, to local residents. They did not believe it was a feral Domestic Cat.
DATA REPORT: iNaturalist #35790675 [also see iNaturalist #35778168 & ???]
BEHAVIOR: laying in open field. Stood up, stretched, and walked slowly into some woods.
PHOTOGRAPHER: Michael Skinner ~23 m (~75 ft) away
BLACK BOBCAT: Coleman (2007) documented 14 black (melanistic) Bobcats in south- and south-central Florida (1939-2007). He stated no Florida records of documented black Panthers exist. Apparently, no confirmed record of any North American black Panther exists. REW thought the cat was a Panther. The Figure shows a large, black cat with a thick, long tail. This was not a Bobcat.
IMPORTANCE: Possible first record of a North American black Panther
BLACK LEOPARD: Coincidentally, LBW and EHW observed and photographed a rare black Sri Lankan Leopard, Panthera pardus kotiya Deraniyagala, 1956, 14 July 2010, in Horton Plains National Park, Nuwara Eliya, Siri Lanka [see iNaturalist #???].
OBSERVERS: Dr. Ernest H. Williams, Jr.[1,2,4,5] Dr. Raymond E. Waldner [7] and Dr. Lucy Bunkley-Williams[1,3,4,6]
AFILIATIONS, ADDRESSES: [1]Extraordinary Professors, Potchefstroom Campus, North-West University, South Africa; Adjunct Professors, Research Field Station, Florida Gulf Coast University, 5164 Bonita Beach Road, Bonita Springs, FL 34134; [2]Dept. Marine Sciences, University of Puerto Rico (retired); [3]Dept. Biology, UPR (retired); [4]920 St. Andrews Blvd, Naples, FL 34113-8943; [5]e-mail ermest.williams1@upr.edu; cell 239-227-3645, ORCID 0000-0003-0913-3013; [6]Cell 787-467-2179, e-mail lucy.williams1@upr.edu, ORCID 0000-0003-1390-911x; [7] Professor of Biology and Associate Dean of Sciences, Palm Beach Atlantic University, 901 S. Flagler Drive, West Palm Beach, Fl 33410.
REFERENCES:
<>Coleman, L. 2007. Melanistic Bobcat caught. Cryptomundo News, https://cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/07blk-bobcat/
<>NBC. 2007. Lynx on the rise, breeding with bobcats in N.B. CBS News, posted 5 February 2007, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/lynx-on-the-rise-breeding-with-bobcats-in-n-b-1.685497
<>Williams, E. H., Jr., R. E. Waldner, and L. Bunkley-Williams. 2019. First confirmed report of a black (melanistic) Panther in North America? Research Quality Report, iNaturalist #35790675, 17 November (open access) [443]