One of several felines in the fearsome critters family, the ball-tailed cat (felis candaglobosa) historically takes its place in the folklore of Pennsylvania and Oregon. The creature is said to have the body of a cougar, though it should not be confused with this wild feline. For one thing, it is far more hostile, with a fierce temperament. The ball-tailed cat also has a large bone mass on the end of its tale, which occasions its name and makes the appendage a deadly weapon.
When hunting, the ball-tailed cat conceals itself high in trees and targets unsuspecting passersby from above, including forestry workers. It prefers to catch its prey by surprise, dropping from above and using its tail like a mace to beat its victim to a pulp. Many lumberjacks attribute the disappearances of many a woodsman to the cunning ambushes of ball-tailed cats. That being said, the critter is described as being less assured on the ground and likely to flee if confronted on foot. As a consequence, those concerned about their safety in areas rumored to harbor ball-tailed cats have frequently defoliated them.
Woodsmen often attributed the strange knocking sounds common in some forests to the behavior of ball-tailed cats. According to folklore, the creature bangs its weighty tail upon hollow tree trunks and logs to summon members of the opposite sex during mating season. This ritual recalls those of other fearsome critters, notably the silver cat and the plunkus (or dingmaul). These other felines drum their tails to attract mates, too, though against their own chests rather than against local flora.
The earliest written mention of the ball-tailed cat appears in Henry Tyron’s Fearsome Critters (1939), which gathered accounts of many woodland animals reported by nineteenth-century loggers. Tyron speculates that the population of the ball-tailed cat had already declined dramatically in the first decades of the twentieth century. In years since, reports of the beast have become more of a rarity, with none during the twenty-first century. Though, perhaps, a few ball-tailed cats might still be lurking deep in the timberlands.
Noel Sloboda
See also Fearsome Critters; Hidebehind; Lumberjack Tales; Squonk; Teakettler; Wampus Cat
Further Reading
Cohen, Daniel. 1975. Monsters, Giants, and Little Men from Mars: An Unnatural History of the Americas. New York: Doubleday.
Dorson, Richard M. 1982. Man and Beast in American Comic Legend. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Schwartz, Alvin. 1978. Kickle Snifters and Other Fearsome Critters. Binghamton, NY: HarperCollins Juvenile Books.
South, Malcolm. 1984. Mythical and Fabulous Creatures: A Source Book and Research Guide. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Tyron, Henry H. 1939. Fearsome Critters. Cornwall, NY: Idlewild Press.