During early March 2023, I noticed a certain, very eyecatching photograph doing the rounds on social media and inciting all manner of speculation as to the creature that it portrayed. As seen above, it is a close-up head-and-shoulders image of a very spectacular cat, ornately adorned with vivid black and yellow markings.
According to claims accompanying this photo, the animal is a South American snake cat, up to 50 cm (20 in) long, weighing as much as 4 kg (9 lb), and allegedly the world's rarest species of wild cat, despite the claims also stating that it exists in a number of different countries, including Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname.
Within its ostensibly expansive distribution range, this exotic beast reputedly exists only in the most remote, inaccessible Amazon jungle locations, is poorly studied, and was not even photographed in the wild state until 2020. Yet the snake cat is supposedly well known to the indigenous locals, who sometimes even rear and tame cubs to use in keeping their homes free of its venomous serpentine namesakes and other undesirable creatures.
Looking at this single extraordinary photo – my subsequent investigations swiftly revealed that there were no other purported snake cat photos online – I had little doubt that it was a fake, as I had never encountered any information whatsoever of this mysterious mammal, yet I felt certain that such a visually-arresting beast would be extensively (and scientifically) documented online and elsewhere if it were indeed real.
Finally, courtesy of a Mexican article, I discovered the truth. As revealed in a Chihuahua Noticias news report from 14 March 2023 (click here to access it), the snake cat is wholly fictitious, with its unique photo actually being an AI (Artificial Intelligence) creation. Quelle surprise!
Looking again at its distinctive markings, I think it likely that photos of a large and very familiar, wide-ranging species of North American amphibian known as the tiger salamander Ambystoma tigrinum, whose bright yellow and black markings readily recall the snake cat's, may have played a part in this non-existent entity's photographic generation.
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I remember seeing that "snake cat" image being shared so many different places online a while back, and yeah I could instantly tell it was computer generated artwork...
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