SNEAKING UP ON THE SNAKE CAT

 The snake cat photograph (©unknown to me, despite in-depth searches made by me online; AI-generated, viaperson(s) unknown to me – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Usebasis for educational/review purposes only)

During earlyMarch 2023, I noticed a certain, very eyecatching photograph doing the roundson social media and inciting all manner of speculation as to the creature that itportrayed. As seen above, it is a close-up head-and-shoulders image of a veryspectacular cat, ornately adorned with vivid black and yellow markings.

According to claimsaccompanying this photo, the animal is a South American snake cat, up to 50 cm (20in) long, weighing as much as 4 kg (9 lb), and allegedly the world's rarest speciesof wild cat, despite the claims also stating that it exists in a number ofdifferent countries, including Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Guyana,French Guiana, and Suriname.

Within its ostensibly expansive distribution range, thisexotic beast reputedly exists only in the most remote, inaccessible Amazonjungle locations, is poorly studied, and was not even photographed in the wildstate 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 itsvenomous serpentine namesakes and other undesirable creatures.

Looking at this single extraordinary photo – my subsequentinvestigations swiftly revealed that there were no other purported snake catphotos online – I had little doubt that it was a fake, as I had neverencountered any information whatsoever of this mysterious mammal, yet I feltcertain that such a visually-arresting beast would be extensively (andscientifically) documented online and elsewhere if it were indeed real.

Finally, courtesy of a Mexican article, I discovered thetruth. As revealed in a ChihuahuaNoticias news report from 14 March 2023 (click here to access it), the snake cat iswholly fictitious, with its unique photo actually being an AI (ArtificialIntelligence) creation. Quelle surprise!

Looking again at its distinctive markings, I think itlikely that photos of a large and very familiar, wide-ranging species of NorthAmerican amphibian known as the tiger salamander Ambystoma tigrinum, whose bright yellow and black markings readilyrecall the snake cat's, may have played a part in this non-existent entity's photographicgeneration.

  A tiger salamander(public domain)