I have always been interested in North America‘s Black Panther sightings. In 2003, I spent some weeks in central Illinois investigating them and spoke to several eyewitnesses, including somebody – a lady of a certain age – who had seen the pelt of one nailed up on a barn door  when she had been a little girl. My friend and colleague Bill Rebsamen has been cataloguing these sightings from Alabama, and I found it very interesting that it is now hitting the global media.

the only indigenous big cat species to any of these errors is the puma (which isn’t actually a big cat) or – if you stretch the definition wildly – bobcat or lynx. These creatures are far too big to be either of these latter species, And – despite rumours – there is no proof that pumas will produce a melanistic colour morph. So what are they? JD

The legend of Alabama’s black panthers: Why the sightings never stop