What does this mountain lion have in its mouth? Texas wildlife officials want to know
A wildlife mystery needs solving in southern Texas and experts wouldn’t mind your to help — if you can stomach the details.
It involves a December trail camera photo that caught a large mountain lion dragging another animal in its mouth.
Apparently, not even wildlife experts can identify the unlucky prey, which is a bit disconcerting.
“Can you identify this prey animal taken in Terrell County? P.S. We’re guessing, too,” officials with the Trans-Pecos Wildlife District posted Jan. 14 on Facebook. Terrell County is about 400 miles southwest of Fort Worth.
“Lions are opportunistic, preying on a wide range of animals. Work conducted by Borderlands Research Institute identified at least 14 species of prey in the diet of west Texas Mountain Lions.”
The trail camera got a clear view of both animals, but the prey’s head is stuck between the lion’s jaws, making a firm identification pretty tough. What you can tell: It’s four-legged, fury and almost as tall as the mountain lion, when measured from rump to head.
Guesses on Facebook have included, a bobcat, piglet, raccoon and gray fox.
A few people suggested it might be somebody’s beloved dog or cat, though many concluded it seems too big to be a domestic cat.
“One on my place ate cats, dogs, chickens, guineas, cattle, sheep and horses,” one woman wrote on Facebook. “Killed my neighbors puppies, one every couple of days. Goats, miniature horses. My donkeys were afraid of it. I knew when it was there. They would be up at the house fence braying.”
Mountain lions — also known as cougars, panthers, or pumas — “have the ability to take prey up to 5 times their weight,” the Borderlands Research Institute reports. Males can weigh more than 230 pounds, and “they can leap 30 feet,” Texas Native Cats says.
The Borderlands Research Institute, based at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, says it is using GPS collar data to find mountain lion “kill sites” in south Texas, so it can figure out what they’re eating.
Data collected so far have revealed their prey include deer, elk, feral hogs and coyotes, the institute says. They’re also big on scavenging animals they find dead, officials said.
This story was originally published January 24, 2021 at 10:04 AM with the headline "What does this mountain lion have in its mouth? Texas wildlife officials want to know."