Mountain Lion Killed in Conn. Traced to S. Dakota Breitbart

A case of an out-of-place creature killed when struck on a Connecticut highway last month has turned out to be a case of a way out-of-place creature. The first confirmed wild mountain lion found in Connecticut in a century turns out to have made its way from South Dakota, a distance of around 1500 miles. Connecticut officials traced DNA from droppings and hair samples showing the big cat's progress across the nation, a journey reported as "one of the longest ever recorded for a land mammal." What drove this male cougar to trek from the Black Hills of South Dakota to Connecticut? That question - and other more important ones - lead to commentary from Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology Jon Downes in The Latest on the Connecticut Puma. Has information been withheld in what Downes has referred to as the "Connecticut Cougar Caper"? Another large feline has shown up where it wasn't supposed to be, too, as indicated in a report from Cheshire, England, found in 'Big Cat' Spotted at Lymm Rugby Club. And there's even a report of a large cat seen as a harbinger of doom ever since the days of President Abraham Lincoln, as Shawn Lindseth explains inAwesome or Off-Putting: Washington DC’s Demon Cat. Elsewhere, illustrations accompany Rob Morphy's treatise on The World’s Strangest Lake Monsters, Loren Coleman remembers the influence a book about denizens of the inland deeps has had on him in Rethinking Lake Monster Traditions and Craig Woolheater spotlights the work of Bob and Kathy Strain in Calling Bigfoot: Will He Answer?