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 Spanish name "onza" derives from the Latin lynx, lyncis. [1]
The Spaniards reported that onzas were on display at Moctezuma's zoo, alongside tigres (tigers) and leones (lions). 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. Only one viable specimen has been taken: A rancher named Andres Murillo in January 1986 saw what he thought was a jaguar attacking him while deer hunting, so he shot it. It turned out not to be a jaguar, and he brought it to Vega, who owned a nearby ranch. He told Murillo that the specimen he had resembled greatly the onza his father had shot in the 1970s, the skull of which he still had. The specimen was a female, who weighed 60 lb (27 kg). Her body, not including the tail was 45 inches (113 cm) long, and the tail added another 23 inches (73 cm). The cat has the appearance of a cougar with a very long, thin body and long thin dog-like legs. It had eaten recently, because deer had been found in its stomach. 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 University researchers concluded that the onza is most likely a genetic variant of puma, but not a distinct cat species.
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[edit] History
The Onza first appears in the legends of the Aztecs. The Florentine Codex, Vol. 13, a compilation of Aztec customs, beliefs and natural history, describes the cuitlamiztli, which they say resembled a cougar, but was far more aggressive. Christopher Columbus sent a letter from Mexico to the Spanish kings, it describes an amazing animal: "A marksman killed a beast like a cat, but pretty much longer and with a human alike face. He pierced it with an arrow... Nevertheless, it was so wild that he had to cut a foreleg and a rear leg from it. When a boar saw the beast, it got the creeps... In spite that the huge cat was dying... It immediately attacked the boar, surrounded his snout with his tail and strongly pressed it. Then with the fore leg that left, strangled it." When the conquistadores arrived in Mexico from Spain, they were shown the great zoo of the emperor Motecuzoma (Montezuma). One of the Spaniards, Bernal Díaz 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.
[edit] Twentieth century
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. The animal also had non-retractable claws, like those of a cheetah. [2] A puma's claws are retractable.
[edit] Identity
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."
[edit] References
- Neil B. Carmony. Onza! The Hunt for a Legendary Cat. High Lonesome Books (1995)
- Loren Coleman. Cryptozoology A To Z. Fireside (1999)
- Robert E. Marshall. The Onza. The Story of the Search for the Mysterious Cat of the Mexican Highlands. Exposition (1961)
- Karl P.N. Shuker. Mystery Cats of the World. Robert Hale (1989)
- Karl P.N. Shuker. The New Zoo: New and Rediscovered Animals of the Twentieth Century. House of Stratus (2002)
