Bedlam as Berlin hunts escaped lion! Screenshot. |
Friday, 21 July 2023
Bedlam as Berlin hunts escaped lion!
Friday, 26 May 2023
What is a red tiger? A mystery cat.
Throughout history, there have been many mystery cats. These are terrifying creatures often created through superstitions, myths and legends handed down to generations probably for thousands of years. One of these mystery cats is the "Red Tiger". What does it mean? You will not find a lot about the red tiger on the internet. You will have to read the book Mystery Cats of the World by KPM Shuker to find out more.
However, I can rely upon a couple of experts, Dr. Desmond Morris in his book Cat World and Sarah Hartwell on her website messybeasts.com
Dr. Desmond Morris
He states that the plain red tiger was reported in 1936. It is a tiger with the usual background colour but no stripes according to him. This is a uniformly reddish-brown animal which was said to inhabit a region of open sandy tracts hence the colour of the coat which evolved. It provided better camouflage. Dr. Morris said that its existence has never been scientifically verified.
Sarah Hartwell
As usual, she has the best information on this topic as she is very good on weird and wonderful big cats, myths and legends and mutants!
On a webpage about mutant big cats and golden tigers, she has a reference to the red tiger. She refers to naturalist brothers, the Van Ingens. They apparently described the red tiger as a golden tabby tiger containing an excessive amount of red pigmentation. Or it might refer to a dark orange tiger.
The red tiger appears to be a modified variety of the standard Bengal tiger on my understanding. If so, it would have been due to a genetic mutation. She also refers to the 'Red Caspian tiger'. The picture on this page shows one.
The Caspian tiger is extinct. Rewilding the Caspian Tiger.
The stripes of the Caspian tiger are not the normal black colour but a little darker than the background colour. RI Pocock writing in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society believed that this tiger variation from the normal pattern is a partial suppression of the black stripes and white areas which approaches the "uniform tint of the lion and showing that the differences between the two species in this particular and not of fundamental importance".
That's not very clear but it was written a long time ago (1929). Pocock adds that:
"The red tiger, illustrated in our coloured plate….is a unique type with all the black pigment abstracted from the stripes, leaving them reddish-brown and only a little darker than the ground colour…The dressed skin of a tigress ticketed ‘Northern slopes of Mount Elburz’ and presented by Col. R.L. Kennion who told me it was presented to him by a native chief. This tiger, represented in the coloured plate, is of extreme interest. The ground colour and the pattern are as in the Afghan specimen; but there is not a trace of black on the skin, all the stripes being brown and indistinctly defined owing to their approximation to the general hue of the coat.”
Sarah Hartwell's comment on that is that he might be referring to a golden tabby tiger. She also states that in Assam in 1929, two light-coloured red tigers which would now be called golden tabby tigers were shot. What a shame! Back in the day they thought nothing of it. Hartwell states that "according to the Van Ingen brothers who provided the photograph to the journal:
"The red tigress in the foreground was shot some years ago in Assam by the late Mr W G Forbes. The skin was white with the pale tan background and marked with fine stripes in a darker shade of tan. Curiously the three last stripes at the tip of the tail were black. The white tiger shown in comparison was pure white and marked with chocolate stripes. This tiger was shot by the Ruling Chief of Korea [i.e. Koriya princedom] also some years ago.” “Variation in Colour of Tigers and Panthers” by Van Ingen & Van Ingen, in JBNHS v.42:pt.3-4 (1942). J.C.Daniel provided further information on the skins in his 2001 book “The Tiger in India”: The two light-coloured tigers shot by W.G. Forbes of Hathikuli Tea estate in 1929 were described at the time of curing by Messrs. Van Ingen as ‘red tigers’."
I am grateful to Sarah Hartwell for this information. You can read more if you like by clicking on this link. The conclusion as I understand it, is that the red tiger was a colour morph and not as you might imagine a bright red tiger! It was a variation and the description of "red tiger" is perhaps misleading in this respect.
Sunday, 14 May 2023
FAKE! DNA evidence to prove that big cats prowl British countryside!?
The British news media, at the moment (mid-May 2023), are stating that DNA evidence from a black hair strand caught on a barbed wire fence following a sheep attack has offered "definitive proof" that big cats are roaming the British countryside. Don't believe it. This is fake in my view but I stress this is my opinion.
The picture in the circle is a stock image from Alamy of a genuine black big cat (melanistic) while the blurry one is of a domestic cat crossing a field! Image: LBC. |
There is a band of people in Britain who have been trying to prove that there are big cats - normally black panthers - roaming around the British countryside surreptitiously and have been for decades.
My suggestion (allegation) is that one of these band of brothers has got hold of a black hair strand from a melanistic jaguar i.e. black panther from a zoo because they have a friend working in the zoo and they have placed this black hair on a barbed wire fence and then commissioned a laboratory to do a DNA test on it. They've worked with the documentary film maker to do this (see below).
That I think is a very fair allegation because there is simply no evidence whatsoever to prove that there are big cats in the British countryside. People have been taking photographs and videos of big cats for decades and they are always fuzzy images and the cats are always domestic cats on analysis.
You have to have an inordinate amount of faith to believe what these big cat conspiracists want us to believe.
The LBC website say that this is a "shocking revelation" (LOL). It comes after a documentary film maker spent years investigating sightings across the country they say.
This mysterious black feline hair strand was recovered from a farm in Gloucestershire where there has been some unusual predatory activity. And there is apparently video footage of a large black animal in the area. They mean a domestic cat.
The picture above published on the LBC website shows a black panther - a genuine black big cat - but it is a stock photograph.
Matthew Everett from Dragonfly Films said:
The DNA was from hairs caught on a barbwire fence where there had been some unusual predatory activity.
"It's taken five years for the production team to find such evidence and film its journey from collection to analysis.
"People in Gloucestershire and Britain have described what appear to be black leopards for decades. So, a leopard DNA result from a black hair sample is unsurprising.
"This is not the first such DNA result and is unlikely to be the last.
"There is a great deal of 'secondary evidence' for these cats, such as consistent witness reports, but hard evidence like DNA is hard to get, so the contribution from this documentary is very helpful.
"Collecting such evidence from local people, farmers and landowners is essential - Citizen Science like this will hopefully help us learn more about the Bagheera type big cats which may be quietly naturalising here."
Dragonfly Films are looking into broadcast options for the documentary film. I will look forward to seeing it. But I do not believe a shred of this. It is an attempt to make an interesting film based upon a topic which has fascinated millions of people for a very long time and upon which the news media depend when real news becomes quiet.
Sunday, 15 August 2021
Mutant moggies could be getting mistaken for big cats!
The Gloucestershire Live website has the above title and in my honest opinion it is completely misguided. The journalist is saying that people are mistaking enormous domestic cats for black panthers roaming around the British countryside. It is not a question of mutant domestic cats at all. This is a question of the human brain. I stress; these are not mutant, large domestic cats that are being mistaken for big cats but standard domestic cats which have been enlarged in the minds of their observers (at a distance).
This is assessed by Frank Tunbridge as a very large feral cat but how did he accurately assess size with such a poor-quality image? It is all in the mind and it is sad. Image: Frank Tunbridge. |
And the reason why people historically enlarge the size of domestic cats and believe that they're looking at a big cat is because they are frightened. Fear is in the minds of most people all the time at a low level. It's guides them and dictates what they do in life. And there seems to be an inherent fear of cats. It is probably a throwback to time when people were living in caves 100,000 years ago.
At that time humans genuinely had to fight off marauding big cats because they were prey animals. And there were many of them even in Europe. Times have changed. Humankind has more or less exterminated all big cats from the planet. Certainly, in comparison to the very early days of the big cats there are very, very few left because of human persecution and the destruction of their habitat by people.
But there is still this fear of big cats and there are still people who actually believe that they exist in England, living in the countryside. And yet they have never produced hard evidence. The best that they can come up with are woolly pictures, badly out of focus or taken from such a distance that they are completely unsharp and unreadable.
CLICK TO LEARN HOW TO VERIFY OR THROW OUT BIG CAT SIGHTINGS
There are some diehard big cat enthusiasts who insist that they are out there but even the enthusiast Frank Tunbridge thinks that some people are mistaken and jumping to conclusions. Well, that's an admission but it's about time. I'm afraid it is obvious that people are coming to misguided conclusions.
He states that there are mutant moggies but he is wrong in that as well. He said that three women had seen a huge black moggy in Matson. They said that the animal walked along in front of them and left the area by the fishing lake. They describe the animal as having a long body, jet black in colour and the size of a small German Shephard dog. Mr Tunbridge set up a camera trap and on it is a recording of this large black cat. He thought the cat was a large moggy but the quality of the imagery is so bad that it is impossible to assess it (see pic above).
He refers to Australia where, indeed, some feral cats have grown quite large because of an abundance of prey animals. But this is a misconception as well. These large Australian feral cats are pretty large but they are nowhere near the size of the big cats. You would still describe them as small wild cats, the size of a large domestic cat.
And Britain is not Australia. There are no feral cats in Britain of any size larger than standard domestic cats. It's about time that they faced up to reality which is that they are hostages to their distorted beliefs born out of fear.
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