January 19, 2009

Pogeyan: New Mystery Cat

Dr. Darren Naish has brought to my attention his latest Tetrapod Zoology blog entry about the Pogeyan…

…the unresolved identity of a mysterious large cat. [Wildlife photographer and environmentalist] Sandesh [Kadur] saw this cat about ten years ago. His sighting occurred during broad daylight, in the high-altitude grasslands around Anamudi, the highest peak south of the Himalayas. Unfortunately the cat was not photographed or filmed.

It was large, long-tailed, and had rounded ears and a uniform darkish grey colour. It does not match any known cat, and might therefore represent a new species.

In an effort to film the animal, Sandesh set up a camera-trap (a chirping model of a black-capped chickadee was used as bait), and also used a heat-sensitive camera. Unfortunately neither effort yielded any images of the cat (an artist was shown sketching the cat. The head is shown below, and the whole thing at the top of the article. Both images © BBC).

However, Sandesh is not the only person to have seen this cat, for it’s known to the local people (it is ethnoknown, as we say). They call it the Pogeyan, the ‘cat who comes and goes with the mist’. So far as I can tell, the Pogeyan has not previously been mentioned in the extensive literature on mystery cats.

Naish considers whether or not it might just be a mutant leopard, if it is not a new species.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

Filed under Alien Big Cats, Breaking News, Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Eyewitness Accounts, Folklore, Mystery Cats