Cat shot by sheriff’s deputies was a leopard

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State biologists identified a big black cat killed by a sheriff’s deputy in the Midwest as a leopard, the Associated Press reports.

James Dixon of the Missouri Department of Conservation said the cat was identified by the St. Louis Zoo.

Newton County Sheriff’s Cpl. Donn Hall shot the animal when it charged him May 19. A woman had reported the the cat was scratching at the door of her home near Neosho, Mo.

Owners of big cats in Missouri are required to register their animals, but the sheriff’s department says no one has reported a leopard missing.

Mistaking a big cat for another animal, such as a leopard, or vice versa, isn’t an uncommon call for law enforcement agencies, as evidenced locally by a recent big cat sighting in Eagle Rock.

--Francisco Vara-Orta