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Mystery Australian Big Cat Shot
mugley writes "The Sunday Herald Sun is running a story about the shooting of a large cat, believed to be a leopard or puma, in the Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. Alien big cats have long been a topic of interest for cryptozoologists (and more recently, Lance Henriksen and his credit card) - is this the first real evidence of their existence?" From the article: "Mike Williams, a representative of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, a body that researches mysterious or out-of-place animals, said he believed it was concrete evidence that big cats are on the loose in Australia. Hundreds of sightings have been reported over the years and a leaked government document revealed 59 sightings had been reported in Gippsland between 1998 and 2001. The cats are said to be descendants of animals that either escaped from zoos or circuses or were released by US airmen who kept them as mascots while stationed in Australia in World War II. "
The rugged paws and the thick furry tail coupled with black color makes it fairly obvious that this is a puma. This is also plausible because pumas has a history of being used as pets.
I can't see anything wrong with the picture. You can see both the left and right front paws, and a severed head. The anatomy seems correct to me.
The head looks like that because when you're hunting, you don't use full metal jacket, nor do you usually use hollow point. You use very heavy and expanding lead-point bullets.
These bullets has a thin metal jacket and a hole in the nose, and they are filled with lead. On impact with an animal the nose of the bullet expands voilently and creates something similar to an explosion (way more powerful than any hollow point). As mentioned, the lead makes these bullets very heavy and they sport a massive amount of energy. They are made for two purposes: to kill and to kill as fast as possible.
After the impact and immediate expansion the bullet remains partly intact and can easily travel through the rest of the animal, creating even more damage.
Here's a picture of one of the most commonly used lead points, Nosler Partition: http://www.nosler.com/images/partition.jpeg.
Lead point bullets creates awfully lot of damage to tissue, and it doesn't surprise me one bit that the head was so severed. Even with a .222/3/* you can get that kind damage with the right bullet. I assume the hunter was using .308 or .30-06 or larger ammunition, which can effectively cut a small sized human in two when hit from the right angle with the right bullet.
If you watch hunting videos where they have zoomed in on the animals they shoot, you can often see a thick red mist at the impact of the bullet. In most cases, if it was a hit in the lung/heart region, the animals drops dead on the spot. That would *never* have happened with FMJ or hollow point.