Animal seen on the campus not a cougar

The animal spotted on the campus Thursday is not a cougar, University Police said in a campus alert sent out to students Friday.

After the animal was spotted again Friday afternoon near the same wooded area it was seen Thursday, University Police searched the location and obtained video of the feline, which is now available on the department's website. Images from the video were then shown to the state Department of Natural Resources, who confirmed the animal is not a cougar.

Instead, the animal appears to be a Savannah Cat, a hybrid of a domestic short hair cat and a Serval, a larger African feline, the campus alert said. The Savannah Cat can grow to be as large as 35 pounds, which may have led to why those who spotted the cat thought they saw a cougar, an animal that is native only to Florida and states west of the Mississippi River.

In fact, the state Department of Natural Resources has doubted the animal was a cougar since the sightings begin at 6 a.m. yesterday and continued while local news media and University Police searched the campus for the feline.

However, the animal is still on the loose, and students, faculty and staff members are encouraged to continue to call in their sightings to University Police so the department can catch the feline, the campus alert said.

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