Woman Finds Stray Cat Only To Realize Months Later He's Actually A Wild Puma

Jun 02, 2020

A woman in Argentina recently got a large surprise when her veterinarian told her that her pet kitten wasn’t a house cat, but a wild cat known as a jaguarundi! They even directed her to a local nature reserve, the Horco Molle Nature Reserve, to confirm their suspicions.

About two months ago, Florencia Lobo and her brother were traveling in Tucumán, a province in northwestern Argentina. They found two kittens and their mother along the side of a road. Since the mother cat was dead, the siblings decided to take the kittens home with them. Florencia later commented that she and her brother thought the mother was an abandoned pet that had just given birth, reports the New York Post.

The female kitten eventually died, but the male survived and Florencia named him Tito. He seemed healthy enough, but Florencia took him to the vet for a check-up. The vet noted that Tito did not look like a normal cat and recommended having the Horco Molle Nature Reserve examine him.

The staff at the nature reserve confirmed the vet’s suspicions. Tito wasn’t a house cat; he was a type of small wildcat called a jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi). At eight to 16 pounds, a jaguarundi is about the size of a large house cat, and they currently range from northern Mexico to South America.

According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the jaguarundi could once be found as far north as southern Texas. Sadly, the jaguarundi is an endangered species. The Horco Molle Nature Reserve is keeping Tito and they hope to release him into the wild when he is older.

In 2016, for example, a Chinese couple bought what they thought was a Tibetan Mastiff puppy. Two years later, the “dog” weighed 250 pounds and began walking on its hind legs. The alarmed owners eventually turned it over to the Yunnan Wildlife Rescue Centre that identified the animal as an Asiatic Black Bear.

Sometimes, the reverse happens, and a domestic animal is mistaken for a wild one. That was the case with Spock the Maine Coon in 2016. He weighed 27 pounds and was nearly four-feet-long—and some people were convinced that he was a bobcat.

What did you think of this wild story? What other cases of mistaken identity involving animals have you heard about? Please post your comments in the box below and be sure to pass this on to your friends and family.