333:. There it was found to be a female weighing 60 lb (27 kg) and measuring 45 inches (1.1 m) long without the 23-inch long (58 cm) tail. The story claims the animals were much like cougars but had lighter frames with longer, striped legs, longer ears, and a longer tail. It also claimed this particular cat had the appearance of a cougar with a very long, thin body and long, thin, doglike legs.
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In another version of this legend, it wasn't Andres
Murillo but two people named Rodriguez and Ricardo Zamora who were deer hunting at about 10:30 p.m. when they came across a large cat which seemed ready to charge. Fearing a jaguar attack, Rodriguez shot it. Seeing that it was not a jaguar or a
316:" near La Silla Mountain in Sinaloa. Dale Lee was certain that the animal they shot was not a "puma". Although somewhat resembling what some think is a "puma" in coloration, its ears, legs, and body were longer, and it was built more lightly than a what they called a puma.
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for examination. There, the cat was found to have a large wound on one of the rear legs which both
Rodriguez and Mr. Vega believed to have been inflicted by a jaguar. It was also found to have been in good health with a fully functional reproductive system.
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attacking him. Although there's no explanation of who proved it or how, the story goes on to say that it was proved not to be a jaguar. Murillo brought the specimen to a person identified only as "Vega", who was said to own a nearby
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and that it was nearly identical to one that his father had shot in the 1970s (the skull of the Vega animal had allegedly been preserved). Mr. Vega in turn contacted a
Ricardo Urquijo, Jr., who suggested taking the animal's body to
288:. "It is not as timid as the ", wrote a Jesuit priest, Father Ignaz Pfefferkorn, in 1757, "and he who ventures to attack it must be well on his guard". Another missionary, Father Johann Baegert, wrote that an "
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dared to invade my neighbor's mission when I was visiting, and attacked a 14-year-old boy in broad daylight ... A few years ago another killed the strongest and most respected soldier" in the area.
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puma, they took the body back to
Rodriguez's ranch and Rodriguez contacted a Mr. Vega, who owned a nearby ranch and was an experienced hunter. This person known as Vega said that the cat was an
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had been found in its stomach, supposedly indicating that it had eaten recently. The ranch owner referred to as Vega told
Murillo that the specimen greatly resembled what he called an "
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In this legend, the only viable specimen to have been examined was contributed by a rancher named Andres
Murillo. In January 1986, he shot what he thought was a
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testing had shown the specimen to be another known, but unmentioned, cat species with no significant difference between it and any other cat of that species.
260:. These are real animals, occurring as far north as Mexico and possibly into the southwest of the United States. Also, a cat some call the "puma"
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In one legend, after the
Spaniards settled in Mexico, the animal was seen more often, and some unidentified group of people gave it the name
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DNA testing confirmed that the
Sinaloa specimen was a well-known subspecies of cougar and not an American cheetah or an unknown species.
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In another version of the Mr. Vega legend, it was actually the farmer Andres
Murillo who owned the ranch in the San Ignacio District of
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examined a frozen onza corpse in the 1990s but concluded that it was most likely a genetic variant of the cougar and not a distinct
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228:). There are old texts written by Spanish conquistadors about the onza, but they might refer to the jaguarundi, which is known as
396:. Furthermore, there are also local legends claiming that there are two species of jaguarundi, one of which is usually called
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One such story says that in 1938, hunters Dale and Clell Lee, with
Indiana banker Joseph Shirk, shot what locals called an "
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As a more recent series of anecdotes goes, in 1938, and again in 1986, an unknown number of cougar-like animals shot in
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refers to more than one species. In some Mexican states the jaguarundi is also referred to as
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in some areas of Brazil (in others, it is known by the name that predates American
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The Onza. The Story of the Search for the Mysterious Cat of the Mexican Highlands
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and who killed an animal similar to the one shot by Dale and Clell Lee.
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In another legend, it was claimed that researchers from
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For the former south Italian currency denomination, see
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and explaining the responses to the fringe theories.
513:Spanish-language Mesoamerican legendary creatures
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176:Learn how and when to remove this message
74:Learn how and when to remove this message
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442:, Oxford University Press. 1933: Ounce
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248:, where a spotted jaguar is known as
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114:adding citations to reliable sources
411:Onza! The Hunt for a Legendary Cat
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459:"The Legend of the Mexican onza"
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457:Ernesto Alvarado Reyes (2008).
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463:MastozoologĂa Neotropical
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297:Twentieth century legends
232:in many Mexican states.
320:The Mysterious Mr. Vega
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384:Identification legends
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370:Texas Tech University
498:Mythological felines
420:. Exposition (1961)
416:Robert E. Marshall.
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238:Brazilian Portuguese
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108:Please help
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476:21 February
166:August 2008
492:Categories
425:References
266:onça-parda
258:onça-preta
254:melanistic
136:newspapers
471:1666-0536
274:suçuarana
240:word for
56:talk page
352:Mazatlán
374:species
360:Sinaloa
303:Sinaloa
256:one as
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270:cougar
252:and a
242:jaguar
214:lyncis
192:, the
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125:"Onza"
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331:ranch
157:JSTOR
143:books
18:Oncia
478:2022
467:ISSN
398:onza
394:onza
390:onza
347:onza
339:onza
335:Deer
314:onza
307:onza
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286:onza
234:Onça
230:onza
218:lynx
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206:onza
200:Name
194:onza
129:news
378:DNA
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