Canis lupus hominis

Source.

The animal is reported to be a mountain lion/cougar/puma (all the same animal) living in Roane County, WV. The photo was taken in an area of the county in which several people claim to have seen the “fell beast.”

However, the photo is so grainy that we really can’t tell much. All we have is an image of animal slinking through the undergrowth. We have no scale on which to judge this specimen’s size.

I don’t think this particular animal is Puma concolor.

It is probably one of two common species that aren’t often seen, even by experienced woodsmen.

It is hard to discern the shape of the head, but I think it looks a bit doglike.

However, the length of the tail is also quite hard to discern.

I am thinking that this is a longer-tailed animal with a dog-like face.  In which case, the animal we’re looking at is the gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus). Gray foxes are interesting animals in that they do have a cat-like body and move with the sleek motion of a small cat. In fact, some Latin American countries call these animals “mountain cats” or “deer cats.” They often shed out a lot of their coat in the summer months, exposing a kind of tawny or grayish undercoat.

Like this one:

Or this one:

And if you saw this one going through the undergrowth, in an instant you’d shout “mountain lion!”

These are all gray foxes. In the summer months, some individuals shed almost their entire coats. In this phase, they are called “Samson foxes”– because they lose a lot of their hair.

Gray foxes also have lots of black on the top of their tails. They have an ability to raise the  black hair on their tails whenever they feel threatened, just the same way that dogs raise their hackles.

Now, it could also be a “cross fox,” which is a color phase of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes fulva). Cross foxes do occur in the wild in West Virginia, but they are quite rare. This form is an intermediate between the normal red fox and the melanistic and silver forms. However, this particular animal has now white on the tip of its tail, which is the main identifying mark for the red fox.

However, if this specimen’s tail is short, then we do have a feline that could easily fit the bill.

The smallest species of lynx lives in these woods. The bobcat or red lynx (Lynx rufus). In this part of the world, it is not unsual to see a grayish bobcats with very faint spots.

Now, why do I not jump onto the puma/cougar/mountain lion bandwagon?

I do think it’s possible for a small remnant population of cougar to still live in West Virginia. West Virginia is rugged terrain, and it has large areas without large-scale settlement. My guess is that if one is going to be found in West Virginia, though, there are far more remote areas than this place, which isn’t that far from both Parkersburg and Charleston. My guess is that one would turn up in the Monogahela National Forest or some other area in the High Alleghenies, not in the foothill.

My own amateur zoologist’s opinion is that this animal is a Samson gray fox.

Just so you can get an idea of how gray foxes move, I am posting this video of a Jack Russell, which were bred to bolt foxes(!) and an imprinted gray fox:

Source

You can see how a gray fox can be mistaken for a cat, and there is a reason why they move so much like cats.

You see, gray foxes retain an interesting behavior that was once common among primitive wild dogs. Gray foxes are not bound to a terrestrial existence. They can still climb trees. They share this trait with the raccoon dog and their close cousin, the island fox of the Channel Islands.

So what do you think?