Onza

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The onza is a species of wild cat reputed to exist in Mesoamerica at the time of the Spanish conquistadors. The Aztecs named this animal cuitlamiztli in Nahuatl.

The Spaniards reported that onzas were on display at Moctezuma's zoo, alongside tigres (jaguars) and leones (pumas). When the Spanish settled in what is the modern-day state of Sinaloa, they frequently encountered the onza, jaguar, and cougar. Missionaries there described the onza as much more fierce than a puma, and reported the animal attacked people more frequently. The last well-known records of the animal occur in 1757.

In 1938 and again in 1986 animals in Sinaloa were shot and identified as onzas. These animals were much like cougars, but had lighter frames, longer legs, longer ears and were spotted. Molecular genetic testing of the 1986 corpse found "characteristics indistinguishable from those of western North American pumas", although the researchers did not rule out the possibility of the onza as a subspecies.

After examination of a frozen onza corpse in the 1990s, Texas Tech Univeristy researchers concluded that the onza is most likely a genetic variant of puma, but not a distinct cat species.

History

The Onza first appears in the legends of the Aztecs. The Florentine Codex, Vol. 13, an Aztec natural history catalog, describes the cuitlamiztli, which they say resembled a cougar, but was far more aggressive. When the conquistadores arrived in Mexico from Spain, they were shown the great zoo of the emperor Motecuzoma (Montezuma). One of the Spaniards, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, said that the zoo contained "tigers [jaguars] and lions [cougars] of two kinds, one of which resembled the wolf".

After the Spaniards settled Mexico, the animal was seen more often, and they christened it with the name Onza. "It is not as timid as the [cougar]," wrote Jesuit missionary 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 "Onza 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.

The onza was fairly quiet for the next century and a half, and then in 1938 hunters Dale and Clell Lee, with Indiana banker Joseph Shirk, shot what locals identified as an Onza near La Silla Mountain in Sinaloa. Dale Lee was certain that the animal they shot was not a puma. Although somewhat resembling a puma in coloration, its ears, legs, and body were much longer and it was built more lightly than a puma.

Finally, in January, 1986, Mexican farmer Andres Rodriguez Murillo, who owned a ranch in the San Ignacio District of Sinaloa, killed an animal resembling the cat shot by the Lee brothers. Rodriguez and Ricardo Zamora were deer hunting at about 10:30 p.m. when they came across a large cat which seemed ready to charge. Rodriguez, fearing a jaguar attack, shot the cat.

After seeing that the cat was not a jaguar or a puma, Rodriguez and Zamora took the cat's body back to Rodriguez's ranch. A Mr. Vega, who owned a nearby ranch and who was an experienced hunter, was contacted by Rodriguez. Vega said that the cat was an onza, and that it was nearly identical to one that his father had shot in the 1970s (the skull of the Vega animal has been preserved). Vega in turn contacted Ricardo Urquijo, Jr., who suggested taking the animal's body to Mazatlán for examination.

The cat was found to have a large wound on one of the rear legs, which both Rodriguez and Vega believed was inflicted by a jaguar. The specimen was also found to have been in good health with a fully functional reproductive system.

Most cryptozoologists felt that the Onza represented a new subspecies of puma (Puma concolor), or possibly an entirely new species of cat. German mammalogist Helmut Hemmer even suggested that the onza represented an extant specimen of the prehistoric American cheetah Miracinonyx trumani.

The International Society of Cryptozoology (ISC)'s J. Richard Greenwell concluded as far back as 1986 that the Onza was not to be identified with M. trumani on basis of examination of skulls of that animal.

A 1996 paper laid the Onza's cryptozoological identity - or lack thereof - by stating that genetic examination of the carcass revealed that it had "molecular characteristics indistinguishable from those of western North American pumas."

References

Neil B. Carmony. Onza! The Hunt for a Legendary Cat. High Lonesome Books (1995)
Loren Coleman. Cryptozoology A To Z. Fireside (1999)

External Links

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