A beast without any trace

 The legend of the woolly cheetah

    The feline family is one of the most diverse, with felines as small as a tree leaf to enormous majestic beasts that command respect with their presence.

In this case, in particular, it is a strange feline reported in the 19th century resembling a cheetah, being a possible mutation or species close to these, join me in reading about this strange cat.

This was described in 1877, by Philip Sclater, general secretary of the Zoological Society of London, who wrote about a recent London Zoo acquisition, being a cheetah, captured in Cape Town, which was originally acquired from Beaufort West, in Cape Colony and sold to the London Zoo, but this did not look like an ordinary Cheetah, It had a thicker body, having shorter and more robust limbs and a much thicker tail, being considerably larger than the common African cheetah, since this one was even larger than the specimens of that animal that were next to it, having an apparently woolly and denser coat than the common cheetah, having a color between beige and reddish with dark and round spots, as seen especially in the ears, mane and tail according to the illustration, in addition, Cheetahs have a flexible spine to turn and run with precision, but this one didn't.

         [Illustration of this supposed feline]

In 1878, a second woolly cheetah was reported as a preserved specimen in the South African Museum, Both the specimens from London and those from South Africa came from Beaufort West, although it coincided in characteristics with the previous one, not much could be verified, since the zoo specimen had died by then, then in 1884 a third skin was obtained from the same area, although more markedly spotted and slightly smaller, but sadly in the late 1880s, it was believed that trophy hunters had eliminated the woolly cheetah, since no more specimens were found in subsequent searches after obtaining the original specimens and it can be said that it was true since to this day, nothing similar has been seen again.

Another detail is that the claws of the London Zoo specimen were not retractable.

Controversy 

    Likewise, the identity of this animal is unknown, since it was sometimes assigned to its own species, its scientific name being proposed Cynaelurus lanius or Felis lanea and in others it was considered a simple mutated cheetah, in the end and because the skins were lost, we may never find out, but there is still Hope.

Although the other skins were lost, there is one, guarded by the British Museum, which with the advances of DNA technologies could help decipher the mystery, Who knows if this was a new type of cheetah or if we are facing a case similar to that of the king cheetah, but unlike this one it is already extinct, Let us remember that until recently the king cheetah was a legend and when it was discovered it was believed to be a new species, to in the end be a mutation of the fur and behavior of cheetahs, Maybe we are looking at something like this or a truly genuine species related to the genus acinonyx, although current information is still quite scarce, So I leave the rest to your discretion, thank you for reading, I hope you like to follow me and support this.

[Reading Links]

https://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2017/05/whither-woolly-cheetah.html?m=1

http://messybeast.com/genetics/mutant-cheetahs.html

https://www.biologyonline.com/articles/woolly-cheetah