Onza: Mystery Mexican Big Cat

Is this Animal a Mutant Puma or a Separate Species of Feline?

Jun 20, 2007

While some cryptozoologists want the onza recognized as a third species of Latin American big cats, and not a jaguar or a puma; other people think it is a mere myth.

Earliest Recorded Sightings

The onza is a very secretive species. There haven’t been many sightings. Physical specimens are extremely rare.

Reports of onzas go back to the early 1500s when Spanish Conquistadores invaded America. Bernal Díaz del Castillo wrote about the conquerors’ exploits and recorded that there were a jaguar and two kinds of pumas, one of which resembled a wolf which he called the Aztec wolf-cat, in Montezuma’s menagerie during Cortez’ time. The Aztecs called it cuitlamiztli. The Spanish named it onza.

Some who glimpsed the animal and said it looked similar to a puma, but was skinnier. Because of this description, sightings of the onza were regarded as cases of misidentified pumas.

Twentieth Century Encounters

The onza primarily lives in the northwestern Mexican mountains, but has been found in Central and South America. It’s smaller than a puma and very thin. The legs are long and skinny. Its tail is remarkably long. The ears are long and lupine. It has faint stripes. People who encountered or killed one were positive the animal was not a puma or jaguar, but a different species.

In the 1920s and 1930s, it was thought the onza was a jaguarondi. The fallacy is that the jaguarondi is a small animal, has short legs, small ears, resembles an otter and doesn’t look like descriptions of the onza.

In 1938, hunters believed they killed an onza. They couldn’t identify the animal, so they skinned it and saved the skull. Scientists said their claims of finding a new species were unfounded. The skull indicated it was related to a Pleistocene cheetah or a puma adapted to sprinting like the cheetah.

In 1986, a rancher killed what he thought was a jaguar. He realized it was not one and showed it to a friend. The friend said the animal looked like an onza his father had shot a decade before. He still had its skull.

Findings and Theories

Scientific and genetic tests on the carcass of an onza shot in 1986 showed it wasn’t different from a puma. It is possible the onza may just be a skinny subspecies of this animal, but this lone specimen does not deny the possibility of a new species of big cat.

In the late 1990s, Texas Tech Researchers examined an onza corpse that had been frozen and validated its existence with the disclaimer that it was not a new species, merely a subspecies of or a mutant puma.

In addition to a puma adapted to springing like a cheetah and a descendent of the Pleistocene cheetah, the animal could be a saber-tooth tiger, believed to be extinct, or a South American marsupial saber-tooth feline or a lynx or a tiger-lion mix born in captivity or a large feral cat.

Recent DNA tests dispelled earlier theories about the puma's origin. Now, it is theorized to be most closely related to the African cheetah

Some cryptozoologists believe the onza is a species within itself and deserves this recognition. Onzas have non-retractable claws like cheetahs. Almost all felines have retractable claws. They also have hunting methods that differ from the native Latin American big cats.