A ring-tailed cat was likely spotted in San Antonio recently, prompting some locals to mistake it for a lemur.
“I was afraid of it,” local Jackie Zamora told KVUE-TV. “I just saw its tail, just wagging.”
Eric Garcia, who was playing basketball, spotted the animal staring at him from some power lines.
“A possum has a rat tail, so it wasn’t that,“ Garcia told the station. ”Raccoon, they’re too fluffy. So I started thinking, ‘What could it be; what could it be?’ Then it came to my head, ‘Has to be a monkey.’”
Garcia noted that it had a “zebra-tail,” but the San Antonio Zoo said no lemurs went missing.
Despite its name, the ring-tailed cat is not a member of the feline family. It is more closely related to the raccoon and is native to dry regions in North America, primarily residing in the southern United States, Mexico, and Central America.
The Texas Parks & Wildlife agency says the animal resembles a “small fox” but has a long tail like a raccoon.
“These animals are almost wholly nocturnal and spend the majority of the day sleeping in their dens. They leave their dens at night to feed. Ringtails eat a wide variety of foods. Birds, rodents, carrion, reptiles and amphibians, and insects such as grasshoppers and crickets form the bulk of their diet, although they also eat native fruits and berries as well,” the website states.
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