There are all sorts of cats in Arizona — from coddled condo kitties and feral Tucson toms to bobcats and cougars, the big cats of the Santa Catalina Mountains. The ringtail, sometimes called a ring-tailed cat, is actually not a cat, but jaguars and ocelots, baroquely patterned migrants from the south, wander up from Mexico into the mountain ranges of the Arizona borderlands.

Another neotropical cat ranges from Mexico to South America. It also sometimes ventures into Arizona. Which is to say, rarely. Or, possibly, never.

This would be the jaguarundi.

Like most residents of the U.S., I’ve never seen a jaguarundi in the wild. I hadn’t even heard of jaguarundis until sometime in the 1990s, when I noticed them listed on a directory of animals at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Based on the name, I anticipated seeing a smaller jaguar-like animal — powerfully built, with a richly spotted yellow coat. But there it was, in the enclosure: a rather odd, slinky creature, its fur a solid color, with none of the jaguar’s telltale rosettes. This animal didn’t look at...