A Redhead woman says she spotted a black panther on the Awabakal Nature Reserve walk between Redhead and Dudley.
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She began walking the track from Redhead bluff last Thursday at about 8am in light rain.
"I was only about 200 metres in from the Redhead end when a black panther came at great speed around the corner on the track towards me," said the woman, who preferred to remain anonymous.
She said the creature was running on the track about 15 metres in front of her.
"I think it was as startled as I was, as it turned quickly and headed back in the direction of Dudley."
She said the experience "seemed so surreal".
"I was frightened," she said.
"I just remember the speed of it, the muscular body and shiny black coat. I knew it wasn't a dog, feral cat or fox.
"It was about the size of a pit bull terrier."
She kept thinking "what had I seen?".
She told friends, who were sceptical of the sighting.
Her family initially thought she was delusional. Then they came across articles of other black panther sightings.
This included a woman who spotted a black panther hunting a ringtail possum at Charlestown in August 2018.
The woman had said it was "twice the size of a normal cat".
"The cat looked at me for about 30 seconds, then it leaped off the fence. As it leaped, its movements weren't of a normal cat," she said.
The Herald also reported a black panther sighting at Mount Sugarloaf in June last year.
Chris Trees was riding his mountain bike when he spotted "a big, black cat" drop from a red gum tree.
"It was easily the size of a rottweiler. It had a big, black, bushy tail. It scared the shit out of me," said Chris, of Macquarie Hills.
Asked why he didn't take a photo, he said: "I was scared to even move in case it wanted to chase me."
Panther sightings have been happening in NSW for decades.
Herald readers have reported sightings at Minmi, Wallsend, Munmorah, Swansea, Morisset, Wyee, Freemans Waterhole, Kurri Kurri, Cessnock, Dungog, Singleton, the Watagan Mountains, Medowie and Stroud.
One of these days these panther mysteries will be solved once and for all.
The Chicken or the Egg
A couple of years back, Mount Hutton's John Ure was in his chook pen with grandkids Rachael and Andrew, who were six and four at the time.
"I teased them with the riddle: What came first - the chicken or the egg? We threw it around for a while but didn't come to a firm conclusion," John said.
Having read the scientific explanation in Topics on Thursday, John now knows what to tell granddaughter Sophie in a couple of year's time [she's now two].
"I can confidently declare: 'Well Sophie, it's like this. The very first chicken in existence would have been the result of a genetic mutation or mutations taking place in a zygote produced by two almost-chickens or proto-chickens. This means two proto-chickens mated, combining their DNA together to form the very first cell of the very first chicken. Somewhere along the line, genetic mutations occurred in that very first cell, and those mutations copied themselves into every other body cell as the chicken embryo grew. And that led to the very first chicken'.
"I'm sure that will satisfy her. And we can get on with collecting the eggs."
