Mystery Cats

A news story which has been disseminated today, may have provided an answer to a mild cryptological mystery which has intrigued me for many years. The provenance of the so-called “Indian lions“ of the Gir forest in Western India has been thrown into doubt by a book called Exotic Aliens by Valmik Thapar et al, but nobody has ever claimed that lions have been found east of the subcontinent. However, animals described as “lion dogs“ have been a major part of Chinese iconography for many years, and when I was a child in Hong Kong, I was told fairy stories about them. Indeed, there is a locally famous landmark in Hong Kong known as “lion rock“, which suggests that the people of the Orient were familiar with lions at some time.

Is THIS the Beast of Bodmin? ‘Best proof so far’ of terrifying big cat prowling UK countryside

Ex-Marine warns of ‘terrifying’ Bigfoot sighting at restricted military base – MSN

Driver ‘stunned’ as ‘ginormous big cat on loose’ like a ‘puma’ runs in front of car – Lancs Live

‘Stay out of forests’ public warned after big cat spotted prowling Polish woodland
TVP World
Officials have warned residents in northwest Poland to stay out of nearby forests after a large wild cat that could be a puma or a cheetah was …

‘Ginormous big cat on loose’ in Wales as ‘muscular’ beast runs in front of car – The Mirror

Another mystery cat in Hawaii

Incredibly Well-Preserved Cheetah Mummies Show Big Cats Once Roamed Saudi Arabia

MALVERN BIG CAT: I will admit that I couldn’t see it until someone kindly put a red circle around it

An elusive wild cat long feared extinct in Thailand has been rediscovered three decades after the last recorded sighting, conservation authorities and an NGO said Friday.

Flat-headed cats are among the world’s most threatened wild felines, with the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimating that just 2,500 adults exist in the wild. The rare animals are about the size of a domestic cat and have distinctive, round, close-set eyes.