Elusive Black Panther Spotted in a Goa Sanctuary; Supposedly, for the First Time!

If you thought black panther is a mythical creature, and lives only in the world of Marvel comics, this picture will make you ponder again. A photo is going viral these days, wherein a black panther can be seen roaming in South Goa’s Netravali wildlife sanctuary. The whole country was shocked and excited when the Chief Minister of Goa, Pramod Sawant shared the picture of the big black cat, caught on camera in one of the state’s wildlife sanctuaries.

“A great glimpse of Goa’s rich wildlife. Black Panther camera trapped at Patiem beat of Netravali wildlife sanctuary,” the minister’s tweet read.

A great glimpse of Goa’s rich wildlife. Black Panther camera trapped at Patiem Beat of Netravali Wildlife Sanctuary. pic.twitter.com/p7IVuHDLP1 — Dr. Pramod Sawant (@DrPramodPSawant) May 6, 2020

For the longest time, black panthers were believed to be extremely rare or more as mythical creatures; for many of us, the only black panther we knew was Bagheera from Rudyard Kipling’s novel The Jungle Book.

A forest department official said that they are now trying to search for others if it’s the only black panther in the region. This is for the first time when a black panther has been captured on camera in Netravali wildlife sanctuary as the whole jungle predominantly belongs to tigers.

Parveen Kaswan, an Indian Forest Services officer, also shared a video wherein a black panther can be seen sitting on a tree in its natural habitat. Soon after the video was shared on social media, it went viral and has received 104.5k views since it was posted on May 6.

His caption was quite interesting and it read, “You remember that #Bagheera from Jungle book. Here it is. They are not separate species but melanistic common #leopard only. Found from Kabini to Darjeeling in #India. Beauty captured by Harsha Narasimhamurthy.”

You remember that #Bagheera from Jungle book. Here it is. They are not separate species but melanistic common #leopard only. Found from Kabini to Darjeeling in #India. Beauty captured by Harsha Narasimhamurthy. pic.twitter.com/dDA53gZxBa — Parveen Kaswan, IFS (@ParveenKaswan) May 6, 2020

Do black panthers exist?

All these videos and pictures have left us with a probing question, are black panthers real? Well, for those who didn’t know, these are a different color species of the spotted Indian leopard. The sightings are extremely rare because these are the creatures of dark and generally do not come out in the daylight. Sometimes, black panthers are also called melanistic leopards given their pitch dark phenotype. These big, dark cats are also quite shy so generally they prefer to remain in hiding. So yes, they are very much real.

Source: ToI

Image Courtesy: Dr. Pramod Sawant(Twitter)