Bobcat or Maine Coon? (Vanity Wildlife Question ...)

Northern Casco Bay, Maine

[thecodont]

A bobcat would have longer legs than that (unless those long legs esp. hind legs are hidden by deep vegetation). My guess is it’s a cat.

[EinNYC]

Here is a purebred show quality Maine Coon (my girl Bijou). A really good Coon should have a "2-liter Coke bottle" tail, large tufted ears, full-furred "britches" around the hip area, gigantic tufted paws and a nice ruff. And generally, they're BIG. From what I could see of your picture, it looks like either a part-Coon or a poorly-bred Coon. No bobcat there!

[Lib-Lickers 2]

perfect stride on a big fat cat

[Olog-hai]

Wow, never saw a calico Maine Coon before.

[EinNYC]

That’s because they are very rare. Only about 25 born per year world-wide, I was told by a breeder. I was tracking all the Maine Coon catteries in North America which I knew dealt with the solid color gene (you need that in order to get a tortie and white or a calico) for months before one of them got a tortie and white kitten in one of their litters and notified me.

I am a tortie and white aficionado. Both my kitties are t/w’s.

[fieldmarshaldj]

[Vendome]

Totally looks domestic to me.

[sockmonkey]

A bobcat would have longer legs than that (unless those long legs esp. hind legs are hidden by deep vegetation). My guess is it’s a cat.

That was also what I thought when I saw the pic..not a bobcat.

[packrat35]

Looks like my wife's Maine Coon. He's 18 pounds.

[srmorton]

I have a tortie and white Maine Coon, although I know that he is not pure bred because his mother was a tuxedo cat. He is huge and was over 14 pounds at his last vet visit, but seems even heavier now. He is the sweetest, most affectionate cat to his “slaves” (AKA owners), but is a little leery of strangers. He is also very smart. My daughter taught him to sit when he “asks” for a kitty treat. I would post his picture to show you how handsome he is, but I am “technologically challenged”.

[EinNYC]

Make sure your picture is posted on some kind of web hosting page, like Snapfish. Right-click on the picture and click "View Image" if using Firefox. Then highlight the URL and click Control-C to copy the URL. In your FReeper post (or any other forum post) type out: putting the URL you just copied between the quote marks. That's it, no more techie challenges, now we can see your kitty.

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

Hard to tell with the nighttime pic, but it looks like the fur is very thick, and a short to medium length (not long) with ticking. To me, the short, thick fur rules out a big Maine Coon. Also the tail is not a bottle brush like a MC (I think, again hard to tell from pic). So I’m thinking it’s not a MC, and indeed not even a domestic cat.

It does have certain bobcat-ish tendencies, like those round ears and the thickness of the limbs. I would guess a bobcat/domestic cat mix. That would be unusual but not unheard of. A woman I used to know had a Siamese that was impregnanted by a bobcat. She said the cat had trouble birthing the kittens because they were large.

I would think a bobcat/domestic mix might be trouble for small pets, but probably not for children unless they run after it. Post more pics if you get them!

[pbmaltzman]

I am a tortie aficionado too. Don't have any purebreds, but I have loved torties ever since I rescued a little abandoned tortie kitten from an alley in Long Beach in 1989. She didn't live to be old, but I ave been nuts for torties ever since.

My current oldest girl is a long-haired red tortie, 11 years old. I also have a long-haired tortie-and-white who started life as a feral and was trapped up here in the desert somewhere. Until recently I also had a tiny short-haired tortie, but she had to be put to sleep recently. I also recently adopted another tiny short-haired tortie who is gonna have kittens soon.

Recently at a local PetSmart, I saw an adoptable cat who was a kind of chocolate tortie... no white, but her background color was more dark brown. Her colors were not dilute, but rather muted. She was also beautiful.

One rescuer told me that torties are hard to place, because even totally black cats are more popular to adopt.

I know tortie isn't the only beautiful coat pattern out there, but I just love all those wild markings.

Your tortie-and-white Maine Coon is a beauty. If I had really good cash flow, I might look for a Maine Coon too.

For some reason, here in Lancaster, California, I have seen more torties than other places I've been. Among the numerous kittens being offered for adoption on Craigslist this summer so far, there were a bunch of torties. one party even had a blue-eyed tortie, which I have never seen. Another party had had 4 torties in a litter, 3 black torties and 1 gray (dilute) tortie, all short-haired.

I just love that tortietude!

[Safetgiver]

Chupacabra. I know. One bit my sister in the moose.

[Daffynition]

[piasa]

Looks like a regular tabby cat to me.

[Born to Conserve]

That image got JPEGed, so the resolution is gone.

That’s not a bobcat.

[skeama]

Thanks for replies so far, Hetty most.

There are about 16 pictures, I’ll add them tomorrow. I studied the tail. There is no discernible tail. In 2 or 3 pics, maybe a short tail. 6 of the pics are side shots of the cat walking - and in some cases are better pics for identifying this or that characteristic. Chances are pretty slim you wouldn’t get a single view of a tail in 16 pics though.

I am well acquainted w/coons. In addition to fur, most people don’t know that despite the many variations of characteristics, and the things coons are more well known for, you can tell a coon by it’s facial structure. Most people are looking at size and fur. Size-wise - definitely could be a coon. Not the right fur though as hetty said, absolutely not the right face.

If domestic/bobcat mixes are out there - then I’d definitely believe that.

Re: the Sasquatch picture. That’s so funny that I was going to add in my post that I already predicted it. Please don’t waste your time searching google images for other famous legends like a Lockness or a Bobcat Tractor or Barack Obama’s birth certificate :-)

Anyway - thanks a lot for input - I’ll get those other pictures up tomorrow.

[skeama]

Oops, my last post - I had only read the post directly to me. Will read the rest and respond.

RE: the image -> I uploaded the images to Fliqr.com, referenced them, and even with I had included the exact height and width, still seemed to lose about 2 out of 3 pixels.

Re: ‘Tortie’ - hah - never heard that term before. Could it just be a really really big tortie that's not primarily coon ... yeah, I'd believe that too. But I saw one just like it 2 years ago, and I did a double take. Everything is just off about this cat ... and I've had cats all my life.

OK will read the other post .. FYI - beautiful cats posted.