Onza
Encyclopedia
Wild
The term wild generally refers to:* Wildlife, all non-domesticated plants, animals, and other organisms* Wilderness or Wilderness area, a natural environment on Earth* Wildness, the quality of being wild or untamedWild may also refer to:...
cat
Cat
The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
considered to be a legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
and one of the numerous creatures studied by cryptozoology
Cryptozoology
Cryptozoology refers to the search for animals whose existence has not been proven...
. The term onza can also refer to the jaguarundi
Jaguarundi
The jaguarundi is a small-sized wild cat native to Central and South America. In 2002, the IUCN classified the jaguarundi as Least Concern as it is likely that no conservation units, with the probable exception of the mega-reserves of the Amazon basin could sustain long-term viable populations. It...
(P. yaguarondi). It is known as a type of cryptid
Cryptid
In cryptozoology and sometimes in cryptobotany, a cryptid is a creature or plant whose existence has been suggested but is unrecognized by scientific consensus and often regarded as highly unlikely. Famous examples include the Yeti in the Himalayas and the Loch Ness Monster in...
.
In 1938 and again in 1986, animals in Sinaloa
Sinaloa
Sinaloa officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 18 municipalities and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales....
were shot and identified as onzas (the legendary cat that resembles a cougar, not the jaguarundi
Jaguarundi
The jaguarundi is a small-sized wild cat native to Central and South America. In 2002, the IUCN classified the jaguarundi as Least Concern as it is likely that no conservation units, with the probable exception of the mega-reserves of the Amazon basin could sustain long-term viable populations. It...
). 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
Jaguar
The jaguar is a big cat, a feline in the Panthera genus, and is the only Panthera species found in the Americas. The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. The jaguar's present range extends from Southern United States and Mexico...
, and he brought it to Vega
Vega
Vega is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, the fifth brightest star in the night sky and the second brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus...
, who owned a nearby ranch
Ranch
A ranch is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in the western United States and Canada, though...
. He told Murillo that the specimen he had greatly resembled the onza his father had shot in the 1970s, the skull of which he still had. The specimen was a female that weighed 60 lb (27.2 kg). The body, not including the tail, was 45 inches (1.1 m) long, and the tail added another 23 inches (58.4 cm). The cat had the appearance of a cougar with a very long, thin body and long, thin dog-like legs. It had eaten recently because deer
Deer
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
had been found in its stomach. These animals were much like cougars but had lighter frames, longer legs, a longer tail, and longer ears and had striped legs.
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 cougar, but not a distinct cat species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
. Owing to DNA testing, it is now known that it is in fact a puma and that there are no significant differences between that corpse and any other puma in a zoo or in the field.
There is another legend that is not well known by cryptozoologists. According to that legend, there are two species of jaguarundi living in Mexico. One of them is usually called onza and the other one is referred by any other local name.
Name
The SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
name "onza" derives from the Latin lynx, lyncis, and is equivalent to the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
word "ounce", originally applied to the lynx
Lynx
A lynx is any of the four Lynx genus species of medium-sized wildcats. The name "lynx" originated in Middle English via Latin from Greek word "λύγξ", derived from the Indo-European root "*leuk-", meaning "light, brightness", in reference to the luminescence of its reflective eyes...
, but now more commonly to the snow leopard
Snow Leopard
The snow leopard is a moderately large cat native to the mountain ranges of South Asia and Central Asia...
Uncia uncia. There are old texts written by Spanish conquistadors about the onza, but they might refer to the jaguarundi. The jaguarundi is known as onza in many Mexican states. Onça is the Brazilian/Portuguese word for jaguar
Jaguar
The jaguar is a big cat, a feline in the Panthera genus, and is the only Panthera species found in the Americas. The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. The jaguar's present range extends from Southern United States and Mexico...
, Panthera onca. In its stronghold, the Amazon jungle, the spotted jaguar is known as onça pintada, the black one as onça preta. A very real animal, the onça is spread as far north as Mexico and possibly into the southwest of the USA.
History
A Mexican feline identified as an onza by biased cryptozoologists first appears in Aztec texts. The Florentine CodexFlorentine Codex
The Florentine Codex is the common name given to a 16th century ethnographic research project in Mesoamerica by Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Bernardino originally titled it: La Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva Espana...
, Vol. 13, a compilation of Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
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 describing an amazing animal: "A marksman killed a beast like a cat, but pretty much longer and with a humanlike 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 of that, the huge cat was dying... It immediately attacked the boar, surrounded his snout with his tail and strongly pressed it. Then with the foreleg that was left, it 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
Bernal Díaz del Castillo
Bernal Díaz del Castillo was a conquistador, who wrote an eyewitness account of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards for Hernán Cortés, himself serving as a rodelero under Cortés.-Early life:...
, said that the zoo contained "tigers [jaguars] and lions [cougars] of two kinds, one of which resembled the wolf".
After the Spaniards settled Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, 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.
It is very likely that Spanish documents from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries that refer to the onza do not refer to any cryptid animal, or even to the feline known as onza in 20th century Sinaloa as most cryptozoologists think, but to a plain and well-known jaguarundi. Therefore, these texts might be unrelated to the legendary onza. Normal and boring jaguarundis are referred as onzas in most Mexican states.
Twentieth century
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
Sinaloa
Sinaloa officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 18 municipalities and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales....
, 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 had been preserved). Vega in turn contacted Ricardo Urquijo, Jr., who suggested taking the animal's body to Mazatlán
Mazatlán
Mazatlán is a city in the Mexican state of Sinaloa; the surrounding municipio for which the city serves as the municipal seat is Mazatlán Municipality. It is located at on the Pacific coast, across from the southernmost tip of the Baja California peninsula.Mazatlán is a Nahuatl word meaning...
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.
Identity
Most cryptozoologists felt that the onza represented a new subspecies of cougar, or possibly an entirely new species of cat. GermanGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
mammalogist Helmut Hemmer even suggested that the onza represented an extant specimen of the prehistoric American cheetah
Cheetah
The cheetah is a large-sized feline inhabiting most of Africa and parts of the Middle East. The cheetah is the only extant member of the genus Acinonyx, most notable for modifications in the species' paws...
Miracinonyx
Miracinonyx
Miracinonyx is an extinct genus of the family Felidae, endemic to North America during the Pleistocene epoch , existing for approximately ....
trumani.
International Society for Cryptozoology
International Society for Cryptozoology
-History:The International Society of Cryptozoology was founded in 1982 in Washington, D.C. to serve as a scholarly center for documenting and evaluating evidence of unverified animals; that is, animal species or forms which have been reported in some manner but which have not been scientifically...
(ISC)'s J. Richard Greenwell concluded as far back as 1986 that the onza was not to be identified with M. trumani on the basis of examination of skulls of that animal.
There is another problem surrounding the legend of the onza. In Mexico, the term onza is in fact used for more than just one species. DNA testing confirmed that the Sinaloa specimen was a well-known subspecies of cougar and not an M. trumani or an unknown species of big cat. Nevertheless, in other states of Mexico, the jaguarundi is also referred as onza. Furthermore, there are also local legends that state that there are two species of jaguarundi. One of them is usually called onza.