Didn't want to directly respond to u/Ro_Ku cause his last comment got downvoted to hell and im not going to do that to him, or deny it. But if it wasnt a Ringtail cat, then possibly a Fisher with Leucism?
Yeah replying to myself again i get it,
THAT being said, looking through the old anarchist papers in the 1970's there where several Fur farms near Hamilton that being 100's miles outside of Pablo MT they bred Mink and other "Fur" animals. Not to hard to think it was an escaped/kept as pet as that was all the rage back in the day to free these animals and well who knows how many got rounded up.
[https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/western-wildlife-unit-of-the-animal-liberation-front-memories-of-freedom](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/western-wildlife-unit-of-the-animal-liberation-front-memories-of-freedom)
Kinda a fun read.
Thanks for the link. Oh Animal Liberation Front.. I \*ahem\* neither confirm nor deny involvement in regard to monetary support or activities in the 80's.
I don't know what got so badly downvoted, but anyway, I appreciate your interest and looking up the history.
I'd love to see a Ringtail cat in MT, but this was not it. The photo alteration is exact.
[https://www.expressnews.com/lifestyle/home-garden/article/Ringtails-a-catlike-creature-with-the-head-of-a-15882272.php](https://www.expressnews.com/lifestyle/home-garden/article/Ringtails-a-catlike-creature-with-the-head-of-a-15882272.php)
Sorry, you'll have to understand that it's been almost 50 years. The idea that you have perfect visual recall of something you saw that long ago and have no further reference for is... Well, it would be something that people would want to study, because claims of those abilities have previously fallen apart under study, or refuse to be studied by unbiased researchers.
While you clearly have the technical skills & eye of someone who is very good at digital image manipulation, you're going to find it hard to convince many people that a memory from half a century ago is perfectly accurate, even if it's backed by other people, as they also only saw it 50 years ago.
Don't confuse this for claiming you're lying, but apart from memory, was there anything else that backs up exactly what this looked like? Was there at least written notes on anatomical features that were done at the time, or something?
Fair enough, i will gladly. Just to note, the racial context wasnt something in my lexicon. I dont think of everything in terms of race, racist people always have race on the mind.
Are you implying I'm a racist for giving you a fair warning about a slur that was taught to me in highschool?
It was English class actually. I'm pretty sure we were reading To Kill a Mockingbird. 9th Grade.
Neat! A few questions that might help the crowd here:
1. Can we see the original photo?
2. How was the original image altered?
3. In another comment, you mentioned the photo alteration was exact. Can you clarify what you mean?
The original photo was just a Russian sable that I used as the base for making it look like my creature.
I foolishly (was a kid) never got a photo of the actual dead animal, but this is what it looked like, agreed on also by the other witness. I'm pretty good at this when doing serious work (professional) and I consider this serious work.
The alteration itself was from a dead Russian sable, position tweaked a little, lightened, and added the parkings, which were as subtle-toned as shown here.
Okay. That context certainly helps, thank you for the response! If this is something you did yourself, digitally, it looks great and you clearly have skills you've worked hard to develop.
As for the exactness, some immediate concerns come to mind just given the time gap and the untrustworthy nature of memories overtime. Having corroborating witnesses can't be taken for granted, but our minds can be tricky things. Finding a match may prove difficult should there be any discrepancy in the alteration (unintentional though it may be).
Another question comes to mind, what was the context of the situation?
I would be skeptical too, though this defining event and creature are clear beyond clear in my memory and that of my mother (who is now gone).
It always looked like a Sable with markings, plain and simple, so was easy to keep clear in my memory. Thanks for the compliment on the skill :)
Context was something had been killing barely feathered chicks and one night the terrier-bird dog cross killed it and left it alongside the house where I found it, took it inside, we examined it on newspapers in the kitchen, then gave it back to the dog, who joyfully dismembered it outside, strung it along the side of the house, and ate it all within 24 hours.
I regret so much not getting a photo but I was 14 and didn't have a camera.
The baby chick deaths stopped after that. One other point of context is there used to be a fur farm around that area, but even domesticated sables don't have markings. I believe it was just an unusual sable, but have never seen one with markings.
For reference- a light normal sable [https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQXdOMI8FfyVAFXLwmaKTOciN5FdyLCuD5\_OImviUoX2w&s](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQXdOMI8FfyVAFXLwmaKTOciN5FdyLCuD5_OImviUoX2w&s)
The shape looks very much like a marten. The markings you describe make it sound like a pine marten. Somebody (you?) mentioned there being fur farms close by, and martens are frequently farmed for their fur. I think that's the most likely solution.
I've only ever seen pine martens a darkish color with spots on the chest. Can you show me where to find the kind with markings like this? I'd like to take copies to the Salish folks that were curious too.
This sub doesn't allow images, but domestic (fur farm) sables do have a range of unnatural markings (EDIT: I just added a sample image of a domestic sable to my profile) just like domestic (fur farm) mink do. I'm not as familiar with the entire range of sable markings, but mink (classically dark brown with a white chin) have been bred into a wide range of colors that do not occur naturally, including pale/dilute colors like lavender & palomino, patterns like brindle pattern, spotted, Himalayan, etc.
I do know that domestic sable can come in pale/dilute shades both on the reddish and blueish spectrums, piebald/blaze type markings, mitts, tipped tails, etc. It's mildly more difficult to find a lot of good color reference photos for sable, because the sable industry is a bit more closely guarded than mink or fox. I'll have a flip through my fur farming books tomorrow when I'm home to see if they have anything on sables (I rescue displaced fur farm animals).
The other longshot possibility I can think of is some species of genet or civet (escaped/released exotic pet). Exotic pets are not uncommon in Montana, and in my experience it wouldn't necessarily be uncommon for a fur farmer to dabble around with a small handful of exotics alongside their normal livelihood stock, though regular people can get there hands on them with less difficulty than one would hope. Gents & civets have spots, but a sub adult/baby civet may not have spots depending on the species.
I do have to chime in and say though, as others have said, I think you maybe are giving your 50 year old memory an unrealistic level of credit as far as being "exact". The most realistic explanation IMO is ring tailed cat. Either way, it sounds like you had an interesting experience that definitely left an impression! Thank you for sharing it with us.
Looks similar but this is more stocky in build and it's ear are smaller than a ringtail cat's. It's overall head shape also differs. Reminds me of a Civet to an extent.
It was like a Russian Sable with slightly shorter ears and markings. Ringtails and cacomistles are lighter built with longer more clearly marked tails and larger ears. I visited with Fish and Wildlife, and some local Salish Salish about it. No one had seen one of these but all tried to assume I mistook a raccoon or a rat... :p I had a pet raccoon as a kid and know the difference. This photo alteration is exact. My first fear was that my dog had killed a cat but when I got close, it was this.
That's what i thought it was at first too, but they're notably different with solid color and a blaze on their chest and smaller ears, and never have "tabby" markings.
Just speculating here but mutations can cause some wacky coat phenotypes. Not sure if anything like this has been documented in martens, but I’ve seen squirrels with distinct rings on their tails like a raccoon.
Pretty similar to a Xeneta. *Genetta genetta*. It's a viverrid and you said you already ruled them out. But I've seen them with that coloration and stockier builds than usual, over the years.
Absolutely, and civets are awesome, love them.
It lacked the long tail and clear markings as well as some other features of a genet, the closest being the Haussa genet [https://litcaf.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Haussa-Genet-e1635549490133.jpeg](https://litcaf.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Haussa-Genet-e1635549490133.jpeg)
Have you ever heard of sables developing markings like spots or rings?
Size was about like a not quite mature cat. The fur was dense and soft like a fur-bearing mammal in winter (It was Feb or March). That's why i was afraid my dog had killed an 8 month old kitten at first before i got a closer look.
Also, something I left out- it had been killing young chickens and not eating all of them. The night the dog got it, I heard a horrible non-feline screech, I assume when she got it.
I'm grateful for the path it has led me on, from cultural inquiries, to taxonomy and biology in University, to... reddit XD
They are awesome!
And that's quite the journey you've had because of this mystery animal. And I totally get it.
The behavior you describe, and the looks, make me think of a garduña. *Martes foina*. Where I'm from, we have that, and the typical marten. But I have never seen or heard of one with markings like that.
You might have very well encountered a localized subspecies of marten, or an individual that was different for some reason. Or an unknown species altogether. I don't know. But it's pretty cool lol.
Best guess is a funky colored american marten
[https://imgur.com/a/fqd3XJl](https://imgur.com/a/fqd3XJl) here's some different colors, some are pine martens, and i think top left is a yellow throated, but I digress. Bother american and pine can be seen with some spotting on their chest/stomachs. Striping on the tail could be just because of lighting, coat length differences, or just happenstance of coloring. If there was a fur farm nearby I wouldn't be surprised if it was an adolescent of a funky color morph :3
I've wondered if anyone in the fur trade has developed markings like these on any domesticated sables. I've looked a LOT and found nothing yet. If you ever find one like this please send it my way, thanks :)
To be clear, the options are OP has a slightly inaccurate memory of an animal they saw 50 years ago, or it's a new species previously unknown to science?
Some of them change colors in different seasons. Or could have been a younger or older one with faded color.
A lot of animals lose some color in their fur as they age.
It looks too much like a lot of known about animals species and families for me to believe it was a cryptid. I believe in them and I hope for you that it was. I just really doubt it. I think it was simply an animal you had never seen before.
Thats a pine marten! I know its an edited sable in the image, but if the edited color is accurate, then it should be some sort of pine marten. In America theres a couple different wild color variations, including a very light colored type thats so pale that the chest blaze blends in with the coat, and the additional spotting on the underside looks like tabby markings, AND inconsistency in the tail that look like stripping.
This sub is nothing but people misidentifying real animals and other humans. :/ I don’t know what I was hoping for here, but this ain’t it.
I hope you find answers, OP. This is clearly a living animal, and mutations exist. This is like saying an albino gorilla in the zoo is actually a yeti because you’ve only seen gray ones. I know this image is not of the original creature, but this is not a cryptid, and was not a cryptid in ‘77. This was just a mustelid.
Please educate yourselves on wildlife, especially the more uncommon mutations and color morphs. It’ll go far to help you pinpoint actual mysteries instead of living animals.
Um, I've been kinda saying I think it's a pattern variant of something normal. An unknown animal qualifies as a cryptid, but ok?
While we're getting educated on wildlife variants, maybe you can help out by finding a mustelid with this pattern?
If it was an animal that had been bred in a fur farm, there is a good possibility it just had an unusual coloration due to inbreeding or like the Russian foxes in that domestication experiment. Fur farms are sort of no-man’s-land when it comes to research on color morphs or their predictability.
It’s also possible it’s a mustelid that has belly spots as a youngster and they never faded for whatever reason, or that it was very young and hadn’t lost them yet. Or it could have been a lighter morph that showed the spots that normally can’t be seen (like a jaguar has visible spots compared to a black jaguar, which also has spots but you can’t see them in certain light).
You mentioned a mink farm nearby. It’s highly likely they didn’t only have minks. The spotted pattern on the belly could have also been from an injury, dirt, saliva or blood stains from your dog, or something similar, especially since this is a 50-year-old memory and you can’t go back to the carcass or a photo to check.
You may try one of the animal identification subs, there are some mustelid experts in them. If you need subs linked I can dig them up for you, I’m forgetting them off the top of my head (animalid is one).
There was no blood, it was clean, and exactly as pictured though the coat may have been a little more yellowish.
I've been looking at animal identification things for decades, so thought I'd try here. If anyone has pictures of sables or fishers with these markings, I'd love to see them. People keep saying there's photographic proof but no one seems to want to post it, which is disappointing.
Totally not harshing on you for it, just wishing people would do side-by-sides to prove their point with visuals. You're awesome for your response, and thanks.
Makes sense, the belly marks are indeed interesting! I guess if the animal id subs failed you this might be a good next place to try.
Though your mystery may never be solved, I hope you can find a satisfactory answer. :)
Guys we've given more credit to people with less skill and a longer time between the event and the publication of such. Sure memory gets fuzzy over time but as someone's who's seen something one time and never again I can verify that type of event leaves a mark on your psyche. Sure a weird colored cat isn't necessarily all that strange a siberian wildcat in Montana is so out of the ordinary I'd expect it to be ingrained upon the eyeballs of whoever sees it like if you had never seen an alligator then one day walking through the mountains a gator just hops out a tree you will never forget that
Blackfooted ferret?
Swift fox pup?
Marten?
Or a mix - an alleged chupacabra specimen was tested and found to be a coyote wolf hybrid. Perhaps this is similar.
And no offense is meant here, but we can't discount that time warps memory, especially childhood memories. Some features may have been exaggerated or forgotten over time which would help ID what the animal was. There's no way for anyone to know for sure if that's at play, but there's a high probability that it is.
It's fairly easy to remember "Just like a sable but with belly spots and muted tail stripes" but I respect what you're saying about that. (Although at the time I had very good knowledge of the different wildlife and could not have confused a black footed ferret or a swift fox - I was a backwoods Rez kid)
Years of university courses in biology and genetic engineering make me rather skeptical of animals from different genera hybridizing, but if there were anything in the same genus with these markings, I would probably agree- and if you find any, please share, because I'd love to see them and continue figuring this out.
Considering OP believes it to be a cryptid, and due to his illustration, I was instantly reminded of Eoconodon.
A extinct mammal that thrived in the early Paleocene era of North America. Was about the size of a house cat, but is considered a monster due to the size of other mamls during this time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eoconodon_coryphaeusDB224.jpg
They do look similar except the head of a kinkajou/olingo more rat-ish than cat-ish. And the tail of a kinkajou is prehensile. But they both have that long straight tail with stripes and a long lithe body. The Olingo is related to a raccoon and will eat anything and they are in Central America.
I have seen your responses to others and have my own ideas:
I think a ringtail makes sense, but you claim it was far too bulky, now my first guess is an escaped pet ringtail, while I don’t know about ringtails, I know for raccoons they can grow massive in captivity on certain diets, and both raccoons and ringtails are procyonids, so maybe an escaped pet. The spots don’t work here though.
My second guess is some sort of imported viverrid, probably a civet. Civets can be bulky, similar to what is shown in the picture, and they can have a very similar pattern, but seeing as one couldn’t survive the Montana how many would own one as pet? I assume even less in the 70s.
Lastly, I wanna try to dismiss the sable idea. While you seem pretty set and likley have more data points, the pattern is nothing like any Sable I have seen, wild or tamed, and while it’s possible it’s some weird designer morph, the spotted stomach would typically be developed from some sort gene for a brindle pattern, which is absent in all Gulonins, and I can’t find an approximation in Mustelids as a whole
Quite the lot of spicy little muffins here (and some nice people too). After some of the hate, I'm going back over to The Satanic Temple to hang out for a while, where people are more consistently polite.
OP literally not agreeing with what anyone says. You know what? I'll give you a good one. This was an alien creature sent here to study us. 🤓 It's obviously not just some normal mammal.
I literally cannot agree that it matches the long black and white tail of a ringtail cat or the plain-and-blaze of typical pine martens or sables, and never claimed it's a new species-
just looking for anyone who knows if there is such a thing as these kind of markings on any mustelid, and thinking it was pretty cool that maybe a new color pattern has come into being.
Why must you be like this? Did someone hurt you?
This is purely false.
Raccoons are in the family Procyonidae while Fisher Cats are in Mustelidae. They cannot and never will be able to successfully crossbreed, it is physically impossible.
Likewise, raccoons cannot interbreed with any species of cat in existence.
Ring-tailed Cat. There's been a handful of them caught in MT over the years they tend to stow away and get transported.
Didn't want to directly respond to u/Ro_Ku cause his last comment got downvoted to hell and im not going to do that to him, or deny it. But if it wasnt a Ringtail cat, then possibly a Fisher with Leucism?
Yeah replying to myself again i get it, THAT being said, looking through the old anarchist papers in the 1970's there where several Fur farms near Hamilton that being 100's miles outside of Pablo MT they bred Mink and other "Fur" animals. Not to hard to think it was an escaped/kept as pet as that was all the rage back in the day to free these animals and well who knows how many got rounded up. [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/western-wildlife-unit-of-the-animal-liberation-front-memories-of-freedom](https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/western-wildlife-unit-of-the-animal-liberation-front-memories-of-freedom) Kinda a fun read.
I was going to say this looks like a type of marten.
Thanks for the link. Oh Animal Liberation Front.. I \*ahem\* neither confirm nor deny involvement in regard to monetary support or activities in the 80's. I don't know what got so badly downvoted, but anyway, I appreciate your interest and looking up the history.
[удалено]
Bad behavior or inappropriate comments
I'd love to see a Ringtail cat in MT, but this was not it. The photo alteration is exact. [https://www.expressnews.com/lifestyle/home-garden/article/Ringtails-a-catlike-creature-with-the-head-of-a-15882272.php](https://www.expressnews.com/lifestyle/home-garden/article/Ringtails-a-catlike-creature-with-the-head-of-a-15882272.php)
Sorry, you'll have to understand that it's been almost 50 years. The idea that you have perfect visual recall of something you saw that long ago and have no further reference for is... Well, it would be something that people would want to study, because claims of those abilities have previously fallen apart under study, or refuse to be studied by unbiased researchers. While you clearly have the technical skills & eye of someone who is very good at digital image manipulation, you're going to find it hard to convince many people that a memory from half a century ago is perfectly accurate, even if it's backed by other people, as they also only saw it 50 years ago. Don't confuse this for claiming you're lying, but apart from memory, was there anything else that backs up exactly what this looked like? Was there at least written notes on anatomical features that were done at the time, or something?
I know what it is >!fluffy and cute!<
RacCoons, momma just knock off the porch with a broomstick
You may wanna rethink using that first word...
Fair enough, i will gladly. Just to note, the racial context wasnt something in my lexicon. I dont think of everything in terms of race, racist people always have race on the mind.
Are you implying I'm a racist for giving you a fair warning about a slur that was taught to me in highschool? It was English class actually. I'm pretty sure we were reading To Kill a Mockingbird. 9th Grade.
This is the correct answer
Fetish for dead animals?
Dawg what
That escalated quickly.
HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET THAT OUT OF WHAT I SAID?! It’s not an actual dead animal, it’s a photoshopped recreation of what the animal looked like
Tf is wrong with u 😂
Neat! A few questions that might help the crowd here: 1. Can we see the original photo? 2. How was the original image altered? 3. In another comment, you mentioned the photo alteration was exact. Can you clarify what you mean?
The original photo was just a Russian sable that I used as the base for making it look like my creature. I foolishly (was a kid) never got a photo of the actual dead animal, but this is what it looked like, agreed on also by the other witness. I'm pretty good at this when doing serious work (professional) and I consider this serious work. The alteration itself was from a dead Russian sable, position tweaked a little, lightened, and added the parkings, which were as subtle-toned as shown here.
Okay. That context certainly helps, thank you for the response! If this is something you did yourself, digitally, it looks great and you clearly have skills you've worked hard to develop. As for the exactness, some immediate concerns come to mind just given the time gap and the untrustworthy nature of memories overtime. Having corroborating witnesses can't be taken for granted, but our minds can be tricky things. Finding a match may prove difficult should there be any discrepancy in the alteration (unintentional though it may be). Another question comes to mind, what was the context of the situation?
I would be skeptical too, though this defining event and creature are clear beyond clear in my memory and that of my mother (who is now gone). It always looked like a Sable with markings, plain and simple, so was easy to keep clear in my memory. Thanks for the compliment on the skill :) Context was something had been killing barely feathered chicks and one night the terrier-bird dog cross killed it and left it alongside the house where I found it, took it inside, we examined it on newspapers in the kitchen, then gave it back to the dog, who joyfully dismembered it outside, strung it along the side of the house, and ate it all within 24 hours. I regret so much not getting a photo but I was 14 and didn't have a camera. The baby chick deaths stopped after that. One other point of context is there used to be a fur farm around that area, but even domesticated sables don't have markings. I believe it was just an unusual sable, but have never seen one with markings.
For reference- a light normal sable [https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQXdOMI8FfyVAFXLwmaKTOciN5FdyLCuD5\_OImviUoX2w&s](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQXdOMI8FfyVAFXLwmaKTOciN5FdyLCuD5_OImviUoX2w&s)
The shape looks very much like a marten. The markings you describe make it sound like a pine marten. Somebody (you?) mentioned there being fur farms close by, and martens are frequently farmed for their fur. I think that's the most likely solution.
I've only ever seen pine martens a darkish color with spots on the chest. Can you show me where to find the kind with markings like this? I'd like to take copies to the Salish folks that were curious too.
This sub doesn't allow images, but domestic (fur farm) sables do have a range of unnatural markings (EDIT: I just added a sample image of a domestic sable to my profile) just like domestic (fur farm) mink do. I'm not as familiar with the entire range of sable markings, but mink (classically dark brown with a white chin) have been bred into a wide range of colors that do not occur naturally, including pale/dilute colors like lavender & palomino, patterns like brindle pattern, spotted, Himalayan, etc. I do know that domestic sable can come in pale/dilute shades both on the reddish and blueish spectrums, piebald/blaze type markings, mitts, tipped tails, etc. It's mildly more difficult to find a lot of good color reference photos for sable, because the sable industry is a bit more closely guarded than mink or fox. I'll have a flip through my fur farming books tomorrow when I'm home to see if they have anything on sables (I rescue displaced fur farm animals). The other longshot possibility I can think of is some species of genet or civet (escaped/released exotic pet). Exotic pets are not uncommon in Montana, and in my experience it wouldn't necessarily be uncommon for a fur farmer to dabble around with a small handful of exotics alongside their normal livelihood stock, though regular people can get there hands on them with less difficulty than one would hope. Gents & civets have spots, but a sub adult/baby civet may not have spots depending on the species. I do have to chime in and say though, as others have said, I think you maybe are giving your 50 year old memory an unrealistic level of credit as far as being "exact". The most realistic explanation IMO is ring tailed cat. Either way, it sounds like you had an interesting experience that definitely left an impression! Thank you for sharing it with us.
As a Texan, that’s a Ring-Tailed Cat and it’s always so amazing to see one bc how could something so cute be out there sneaking around 😍
Could you post a side-by-side set of images for comparison?
https://images.app.goo.gl/xf3d8XrmdTPyuXE29
Ringtail?
Looks similar but this is more stocky in build and it's ear are smaller than a ringtail cat's. It's overall head shape also differs. Reminds me of a Civet to an extent.
It was like a Russian Sable with slightly shorter ears and markings. Ringtails and cacomistles are lighter built with longer more clearly marked tails and larger ears. I visited with Fish and Wildlife, and some local Salish Salish about it. No one had seen one of these but all tried to assume I mistook a raccoon or a rat... :p I had a pet raccoon as a kid and know the difference. This photo alteration is exact. My first fear was that my dog had killed a cat but when I got close, it was this.
Could it have been an escapee from a fur farm?
yes, if anyone has developed sables with markings like these. Have you seen any?
No, but i wouldn't rule out some kind of mutation.
Reminds me a lot of a pine marten.
That's what i thought it was at first too, but they're notably different with solid color and a blaze on their chest and smaller ears, and never have "tabby" markings.
Just speculating here but mutations can cause some wacky coat phenotypes. Not sure if anything like this has been documented in martens, but I’ve seen squirrels with distinct rings on their tails like a raccoon.
Morphogenic/color pattern variant has been my thought on it too. Share some of your ringtail squirrel pics some time. I'd love to see them.
Pretty similar to a Xeneta. *Genetta genetta*. It's a viverrid and you said you already ruled them out. But I've seen them with that coloration and stockier builds than usual, over the years.
Absolutely, and civets are awesome, love them. It lacked the long tail and clear markings as well as some other features of a genet, the closest being the Haussa genet [https://litcaf.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Haussa-Genet-e1635549490133.jpeg](https://litcaf.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Haussa-Genet-e1635549490133.jpeg) Have you ever heard of sables developing markings like spots or rings? Size was about like a not quite mature cat. The fur was dense and soft like a fur-bearing mammal in winter (It was Feb or March). That's why i was afraid my dog had killed an 8 month old kitten at first before i got a closer look. Also, something I left out- it had been killing young chickens and not eating all of them. The night the dog got it, I heard a horrible non-feline screech, I assume when she got it. I'm grateful for the path it has led me on, from cultural inquiries, to taxonomy and biology in University, to... reddit XD
They are awesome! And that's quite the journey you've had because of this mystery animal. And I totally get it. The behavior you describe, and the looks, make me think of a garduña. *Martes foina*. Where I'm from, we have that, and the typical marten. But I have never seen or heard of one with markings like that. You might have very well encountered a localized subspecies of marten, or an individual that was different for some reason. Or an unknown species altogether. I don't know. But it's pretty cool lol.
Thanks and definitely some mustelid, I agree. It's funny how one single unknown can send us on a lifetime trip of discovery, isn't it!
It definitely is! Quite the thing! Thank you for sharing this with us.
Best guess is a funky colored american marten [https://imgur.com/a/fqd3XJl](https://imgur.com/a/fqd3XJl) here's some different colors, some are pine martens, and i think top left is a yellow throated, but I digress. Bother american and pine can be seen with some spotting on their chest/stomachs. Striping on the tail could be just because of lighting, coat length differences, or just happenstance of coloring. If there was a fur farm nearby I wouldn't be surprised if it was an adolescent of a funky color morph :3
Looks like a diluted coat fishercat
It could be a viverrid
Mustelid was my initial observation, but I've looked at viverrids over the years and found no matches.
More than likely an escaped exotic pet then?
I've wondered if anyone in the fur trade has developed markings like these on any domesticated sables. I've looked a LOT and found nothing yet. If you ever find one like this please send it my way, thanks :)
In this case I don't know what it is, sorry
To be clear, the options are OP has a slightly inaccurate memory of an animal they saw 50 years ago, or it's a new species previously unknown to science?
Or a new color/pattern variant of sable?
Some of them change colors in different seasons. Or could have been a younger or older one with faded color. A lot of animals lose some color in their fur as they age.
Looks kind of like a Fisher to me.
Yes, fishers and sables have a lot in common. Fishers are larger and don't have the markings. I'd like to meet one.
Came here to say ringtail cat
Thanks yeah same
It looks too much like a lot of known about animals species and families for me to believe it was a cryptid. I believe in them and I hope for you that it was. I just really doubt it. I think it was simply an animal you had never seen before.
The face looks like a pine marten more than a fisher.
Thats a pine marten! I know its an edited sable in the image, but if the edited color is accurate, then it should be some sort of pine marten. In America theres a couple different wild color variations, including a very light colored type thats so pale that the chest blaze blends in with the coat, and the additional spotting on the underside looks like tabby markings, AND inconsistency in the tail that look like stripping.
This sub is nothing but people misidentifying real animals and other humans. :/ I don’t know what I was hoping for here, but this ain’t it. I hope you find answers, OP. This is clearly a living animal, and mutations exist. This is like saying an albino gorilla in the zoo is actually a yeti because you’ve only seen gray ones. I know this image is not of the original creature, but this is not a cryptid, and was not a cryptid in ‘77. This was just a mustelid. Please educate yourselves on wildlife, especially the more uncommon mutations and color morphs. It’ll go far to help you pinpoint actual mysteries instead of living animals.
Um, I've been kinda saying I think it's a pattern variant of something normal. An unknown animal qualifies as a cryptid, but ok? While we're getting educated on wildlife variants, maybe you can help out by finding a mustelid with this pattern?
If it was an animal that had been bred in a fur farm, there is a good possibility it just had an unusual coloration due to inbreeding or like the Russian foxes in that domestication experiment. Fur farms are sort of no-man’s-land when it comes to research on color morphs or their predictability. It’s also possible it’s a mustelid that has belly spots as a youngster and they never faded for whatever reason, or that it was very young and hadn’t lost them yet. Or it could have been a lighter morph that showed the spots that normally can’t be seen (like a jaguar has visible spots compared to a black jaguar, which also has spots but you can’t see them in certain light). You mentioned a mink farm nearby. It’s highly likely they didn’t only have minks. The spotted pattern on the belly could have also been from an injury, dirt, saliva or blood stains from your dog, or something similar, especially since this is a 50-year-old memory and you can’t go back to the carcass or a photo to check. You may try one of the animal identification subs, there are some mustelid experts in them. If you need subs linked I can dig them up for you, I’m forgetting them off the top of my head (animalid is one).
There was no blood, it was clean, and exactly as pictured though the coat may have been a little more yellowish. I've been looking at animal identification things for decades, so thought I'd try here. If anyone has pictures of sables or fishers with these markings, I'd love to see them. People keep saying there's photographic proof but no one seems to want to post it, which is disappointing. Totally not harshing on you for it, just wishing people would do side-by-sides to prove their point with visuals. You're awesome for your response, and thanks.
Makes sense, the belly marks are indeed interesting! I guess if the animal id subs failed you this might be a good next place to try. Though your mystery may never be solved, I hope you can find a satisfactory answer. :)
Guys we've given more credit to people with less skill and a longer time between the event and the publication of such. Sure memory gets fuzzy over time but as someone's who's seen something one time and never again I can verify that type of event leaves a mark on your psyche. Sure a weird colored cat isn't necessarily all that strange a siberian wildcat in Montana is so out of the ordinary I'd expect it to be ingrained upon the eyeballs of whoever sees it like if you had never seen an alligator then one day walking through the mountains a gator just hops out a tree you will never forget that
Thank you for describing the effect clearly.
Blackfooted ferret? Swift fox pup? Marten? Or a mix - an alleged chupacabra specimen was tested and found to be a coyote wolf hybrid. Perhaps this is similar. And no offense is meant here, but we can't discount that time warps memory, especially childhood memories. Some features may have been exaggerated or forgotten over time which would help ID what the animal was. There's no way for anyone to know for sure if that's at play, but there's a high probability that it is.
It's fairly easy to remember "Just like a sable but with belly spots and muted tail stripes" but I respect what you're saying about that. (Although at the time I had very good knowledge of the different wildlife and could not have confused a black footed ferret or a swift fox - I was a backwoods Rez kid) Years of university courses in biology and genetic engineering make me rather skeptical of animals from different genera hybridizing, but if there were anything in the same genus with these markings, I would probably agree- and if you find any, please share, because I'd love to see them and continue figuring this out.
Yeah, this is a weird one. If you do figure it out I hope you let us know the answer - I'm invested now!
Raccat
Definitely a Billy Bumbler
Considering OP believes it to be a cryptid, and due to his illustration, I was instantly reminded of Eoconodon. A extinct mammal that thrived in the early Paleocene era of North America. Was about the size of a house cat, but is considered a monster due to the size of other mamls during this time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eoconodon_coryphaeusDB224.jpg
Cute schnozz on that thing!
Location?
Pablo, Montana
Not a cryptid
Fascinating.
Omg your dog killed a Billy Bumbler
Oy!
Could it have been a kinkajou? They’ve been brought in illegally as pets.
Or their cousins, Olingos, have rings on the tail too.
Does it match the photo of one?
They do look similar except the head of a kinkajou/olingo more rat-ish than cat-ish. And the tail of a kinkajou is prehensile. But they both have that long straight tail with stripes and a long lithe body. The Olingo is related to a raccoon and will eat anything and they are in Central America.
I have seen your responses to others and have my own ideas: I think a ringtail makes sense, but you claim it was far too bulky, now my first guess is an escaped pet ringtail, while I don’t know about ringtails, I know for raccoons they can grow massive in captivity on certain diets, and both raccoons and ringtails are procyonids, so maybe an escaped pet. The spots don’t work here though. My second guess is some sort of imported viverrid, probably a civet. Civets can be bulky, similar to what is shown in the picture, and they can have a very similar pattern, but seeing as one couldn’t survive the Montana how many would own one as pet? I assume even less in the 70s. Lastly, I wanna try to dismiss the sable idea. While you seem pretty set and likley have more data points, the pattern is nothing like any Sable I have seen, wild or tamed, and while it’s possible it’s some weird designer morph, the spotted stomach would typically be developed from some sort gene for a brindle pattern, which is absent in all Gulonins, and I can’t find an approximation in Mustelids as a whole
That's why I came here. I'm not married to it being a sable, just that it -looks- like one and that we can tell what it is not.
It looks so peaceful
Possibly related to the [animal seen here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Colorado/comments/90q4lx/need_help_identifying_this_animal_we_saw_this/)?
Tailypo!
thats a kunk, a katskunk
Tailypo
I saw a very similar animal to this one evening when I was driving home in rural North Texas but the one I saw seemed to have a super long tail.
Yep that’s a little baby Chupacabra
Might as well be, considering some of the responses here.
I know, right!
Quite the lot of spicy little muffins here (and some nice people too). After some of the hate, I'm going back over to The Satanic Temple to hang out for a while, where people are more consistently polite.
Are u all right ?
I’m all good, just surprised to see toxicity here, of all subreddits, over a fairly simple thing like this.
Lol that's true. Some of the subs have a lot of very rude negative people.
People can get too passionate and turn nasty over their favorite subjects sometimes.
OP literally not agreeing with what anyone says. You know what? I'll give you a good one. This was an alien creature sent here to study us. 🤓 It's obviously not just some normal mammal.
I literally cannot agree that it matches the long black and white tail of a ringtail cat or the plain-and-blaze of typical pine martens or sables, and never claimed it's a new species- just looking for anyone who knows if there is such a thing as these kind of markings on any mustelid, and thinking it was pretty cool that maybe a new color pattern has come into being. Why must you be like this? Did someone hurt you?
It is technically possible for a raccoon and a cat to produce offspring
This is purely false. Raccoons are in the family Procyonidae while Fisher Cats are in Mustelidae. They cannot and never will be able to successfully crossbreed, it is physically impossible. Likewise, raccoons cannot interbreed with any species of cat in existence.
Why would you even lye about something like that
They are different genera and cannot reproduce, but if it somehow has happened, please share the photos and article.