The Ozark Howler..

[Skull Cowboy]

http://jingson.8m.com/jackiejingson/5439.jpg


The Ozark Howler is a large “cat-like” creature sighted in the general area of the Ozark Mountains. The Ozark Howler is also known as the Black Howler or Howler. The animal is said to be an extremely large, heavy set black cat. The howler produces an eerie “howl”, hence the name. Occasionally the animal is reported to have horns or glowing eyes
Although many researchers have visited the Ozarks trying to determine whether the Ozark Howler actually exists, many other outsiders have spent a great deal of time in speculation about whether the ozark howler is a subspecies of cougar or lynx, very little attention has been paid to the folklore issues of the ozark howler's origins.


http://www.cathouse-fcc.org/gifs-jpegs/floridapanther.jpg


Ozark Howler may be a variant of the famed Eastern Cougar.
a probable relation to the cougar, its irregularly large front haunches, dark coloring, and distinctive vocalizations clearly distinguish the animal from any known cougar.
Most striking is the similarity of the Ozark Howler to the Cu Sith, or traditional black dog of Death known well to all scholars of Irish, Scottish and English folklore. This creature was described as a large, dog-like beast with dark fur and glowing eyes. The appearance of the Cu Sith was supposed to be an omen of death.
There are similar elements to folklore about the ozark howler of America. First of all, there's the general size and shape of the animal: large, stocky, black fur and glowing eyes. Ozark "locals" describe the ozark howler as a "cat-like creature" three or four feet at the shoulder (much larger than any lynx, but also point out that the beast is supposed to have a rather stocky build. The difference between a stocky cat of such a size and a large dog is not so great as one might think, especially if they are seen at night. The ozark howler is reported to be a nocturnal beast.
In addition to this post i have also sighted such a cat while spending time in Harrison, AR with my grandfather and his family. The basic run down of the experience was me and his family was coming back from town where we had dinner, we turned a corner and spotted a large cat on the side of the ledge( this is the ozarks, alot of plateaus, and the roads give off to steep slops). My grandfather instantly saw it, and regarded it as a "howlin' panther". Me being about 8 and sitting in the back seat only saw the hind quarters as it went down the slop, i remember saying to my grandfather something about panthers being totally black, which is untrue but still i was 8 :p, the fur of the cat was a blue-ish gray color and its tail was long and thick. Needless to say it gave me nightmares that night from the talk of it "howling like a crazy person" as my grandfather put it.



thoughts?

[LV426]

So what is the difference between this "howler" and the normal cougar? If you have ever heard a panther scream you would know that it sounds creepy as hell anyway. Cougars come in different shades as well, couldn't this just be a regular cougar?

[Darth Cluich]

Having lived in Appalachia for about six years [insert duelling banjos here], although that was a while back, I've heard a cougars, bobcats, or whatever you want to call them on several occasions. Their cry does sound like a howl, especially that of the female.

[Hoosier Texan]

Living as I do in Northeastern Texas, I've heard a lot about this Ozark Howler. It's an old legend, and my personal belief is that it is a syncretic blend of native American legends and the Scots-Irish pre-Christian beliefs about the black hounds, expressed in modern times through stories such as the famous one of the Moddey Dhoo.

It is significant to note that the black dogs of England, Scotland, and Ireland were not really normal dogs. They were described as thick and shaggy and about the size of a calf. That's about the size of a black bear that might be found in the Ozarks - coincidence?

Further consider that these legendary black dogs were described as having glowing red eyes - just like the Ozark Howler. I've met and talked with Frank Wall, and I agree that he's hit on something. Whatever the Ozark Howler is, it has hit upon an ancient spiritual motif, a kind of niche in the American Celtic backwoods mind.

But, consider also native beliefs. There's the one from far to the North, for example, among the Iroquois of the man who exchanged his head with that of a bear for a long year, undergoing a spiritual rebirth in order to be restored. Shape-shifting similar stories from the Ozark region fit nicely with the idea of a black, shaggy, bear-like-cat-like creature with horns, and a strangely human cry.

Frank Wall and I also agree that the ozark howler cannot be a bobcat (too small) or a cougar (too long in the tail, too slight of build, and not at all shaggy). It is a shame too many materialist apologists seek to explain away the particular characteristics of the Ozark Howler by lumping it in with other beasts. One might as well say that the Ozark Howler is a kind of giant armadillo.

One thing I know - I've heard too many stories of the Ozark Howler to discount its existence. In one form or another, the ozark howler is out there.
If they can find that giant woodpecker - supposedly extinct in America, why not the ozark howler?

[silent_killer]

they found a giant woodpecker?

[Hoosier Texan]

Yes, bigger than the pileated. It was living in the bottomwoods, which are woodlands near rivers that are often flooded. It had been thought to be extinct for decades, yet, there it is.

[silent_killer]

Yes, bigger than the pileated. It was living in the bottomwoods, which are woodlands near rivers that are often flooded. It had been thought to be extinct for decades, yet, there it is.



i cant find the pics online anyone got a link

[Hoosier Texan]

It's called the ivory-billed woodpecker:

Check out http://news.nationalgeograp hic.com/news/2002/01/0115_020115woodpecke r.html

[Louve]

So what is the difference between this "howler" and the normal cougar? If you have ever heard a panther scream you would know that it sounds creepy as hell anyway. Cougars come in different shades as well, couldn't this just be a regular cougar?
The pic looks like a distorted hyena pic

[Hoosier Texan]

Aha! And what exactly does a hyena remind you of? Neither a cat, nor a dog, nor a bear, nor a weasel, nor any other carnivore. It's a hyena, with some of the characteristics of some of these other kinds of carnivores, but not really belonging to any of those other groups.

That's what I think of when I think of the ozark howler - it really seems to be its own thing - not really a bear, not really a cat, not really a wolf. People who lump it in with cougars are conspicuously ignoring the consistently described characteristics:

Bear-sized. Shaggy fur. Stocky. Horns. Goat-like beard (I put this in there with the shaggy fur, personally). Odd cry.

Also, there's the fact that cougars are really NOT seen in the Ozarks, and haven't been for generations. Ozark howlers HAVE been seen there for generations - exactly when cougar sightings have NOT been taking place. If there was an overlap, then I'd understand these people who say the ozark howler is just a cougar, but there is no historical overlap.

And then the bobcat thing. Come on. The ozark howler descriptions available in folklorists' archives consistently describe the beast as quite large - three to four times larger than a little old bobcat. And you think ozark mountain people wouldn't know the difference???

No, all the characteristics, and the glowing red eyes, show a strong folkloric link to the black spectral dogs of the British Isles. The strong non-dog character of the ozark howler is, I believe, a product of cultural syncretism with native American shapeshifter beliefs.

Cryptozoology or no, we really need a more nuanced reading - and one informed by cultural studies as much as by paranormal stuff and biological science. The long history of the ozark howler is a great case in point for this need.

[Gilenea]

It's called the ivory-billed woodpecker:

Check out http://news.nationalgeograp hic.com/news/2002/01/0115_020115woodpecke r.html

On a side note:

And what a pecker it was! I've never seen one that big. :p

Gil

[Swil the Great]

Interesting, I think, from the sound of it, the Ozark Howler is a cross between cougar and giant wolves. Sounds like a weird theoury dont it? Well it seems to me that these days there's a cross breed for everything, why not a cougar and wolf?

[Hoosier Texan]

That pecker entry made me blush. Nice eyelashes on that wolf.

That's an interesting theory, swill about the cougar and the wolf interbreeding to make the Ozark Howler. I think that the key is to understand what it would take to overcome the behavioral obstacles. What would it take to get a wolf to have sex with a cougar, or to get a cougar to have sex with a wolf?

Of course, some people would say that the Ozark Howler is a pretty unnatural thing, but I think we need to exhaust the natural explanations before resorting to a supernatural explanation for the Ozark Howler.

As far as I'm concerned, the pure cougar and bobcat explanations are very well exhausted.

[Butt-Pirate]

WOW, the description sounds like my mom,,, :eek:

[Gilenea]

That's an interesting theory, swill about the cougar and the wolf interbreeding to make the Ozark Howler. I think that the key is to understand what it would take to overcome the behavioral obstacles. What would it take to get a wolf to have sex with a cougar, or to get a cougar to have sex with a wolf?

That is a scientific impossibility. Cougars and wolves have a totally different number of chromosomes. IF a conception was made between the two species, the fetus would be a still-born. I mean, come on. A wolf and a cougar wouldn't be genetically capable of mating, all behavioral logistics aside.

Gil

[CanineOccidental]

Interesting, I think, from the sound of it, the Ozark Howler is a cross between cougar and giant wolves. Sounds like a weird theoury dont it? Well it seems to me that these days there's a cross breed for everything, why not a cougar and wolf?


Because a cougarwolf zygote could not be formed. The cougar is a feline, w/ 38 chromosomes, The wolf is a canine, w/ 78 chromosomes.
Sex cells are formed by meiosis. during Meiosis, the chromosomes in the cell split in half. One half becomes a sexcell and the other half becomes another sexcell. When the sperm and egg of a species come together,the half chromosomes line up and join to fotm whole chromosomes, forming DNA for a new, and genetically different member of that species. The sexcells have to have the same number of half chromosomes for a zygote to form.

[Hoosier Texan]

Okay, so the Ozark Howler is not a wolf-cougar hybrid - biologically. Could the IDEA of the ozark howler be a conceptual hybrid though?

What I'm arguing for is that there should be a separation in the consideration of the ozark howler. First, we should understand the generations-old belief in the ozark howler as a cultural phenomenon.

Also, but separately, we should investigate the biological reality of the ozark howler as an animal, and where it fits into the taxonomy of carnivores.

Could it be something like the hyena, or the fossa? These are two carnivores that are neither dog, nor cat, nor bear. They are just something different. Perhaps as the racoon is distantly related to bears, so the ozark howler is distantly related to fossas, or bears, or hyenas or something.

I do believe that hyena-like animals once roamed the American plains in ancient times. Could this be a further evolved remnant of that population?

[Hoosier Texan]

I've just discovered a wikipedia article which discusses the ozark howler with many of the same ideas that I've brought up here. Perhaps the author has been reading my comments? ;)

Well, whatever the case in that regard, I think it's a good resource to ozark howler beginners, anyway:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozark_Howler

[Hoosier Texan]

I hate to beat a dead horse, or a dead dog, but I just found another intriguing source which confirms some of the ideas I've been talking about. It's a web site of Dr. Simon Sherwood of the University College Northampton in the UK, on a page where he focuses on the lore of black dogs in Britain:

http://nli.northampton.ac.u k/ass/psych-staff/sjs/blackdog.htm

On this page, Dr. Sherwood talks for three types of black dog apparation in the United Kingdom, one of which is commonly referred to as the Hooter - doesn't take that much alteration for that name to change to the Howler. The three types of black dog he discusses are:
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"A. That which is generally known locally as the Barguest, Shuck, Black Shag, Trash, Skriker, Padfoot, Hooter, and other names. These are not the names of individuals but of an impersonal creature which is distributed over certain areas…This type, which we may call the Barguest type, changes its shape, a thing that no true black dog ever does." (p.176).

"B. That which is nearly always known as the Black Dog, is always black, and is always a dog and nothing else…It is always associated with a definite place or ‘beat’ on a road. It is always an individual. Sometimes it is associated with a person or a family…Another personal association is that with witches." (p.178).

"C. A third variety of Black Dog, which is rare, is that which appears in a certain locality in conjunction with a calendar cycle." (p.179)."
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It seems pretty clear to me that the Ozark Howler is a cognate of group A - a black dog sort of apparition, but which can shift shape - thus the cat-like appearance, bear-like appearance, glowing red eyes, horns, etc. The ozark howler has the identity culturally similar to the black dogs but has taken on a dramatically more robust form in the larger scale of the American mountains. Seems a reasonable hypothesis to me, anyway.

By the way, Dr. Sherwood confirmes through a third cited source that these sorts of apparitions have a history in the United States and Canada as well as Britain.