THE 'Puma of Pontybodkin' has been caught on video again.

If follows numerous sightings of a mystery creature in the area in the last three months.

The video, which shows a large black animal with feline characteristics walking along the treeline, was captured at 12.15pm on St David's Day.

Stephen, who shot the video and as asked for his surname not to be used, said he believes the animal he saw was a panther rather than a puma.

In a report to Puma Watch North Wales, Stephen said: “I spotted a large black cat in the field opposite where I was walking my dog”.

In the video, he can be heard saying: “That’s massive! That’s a big cat that.”

It follows two previous sightings in the Pontybodkin and Pontblyddyn areas in December as well as another in nearby Nercwys.

Tony Jones, founder of Puma Watch North Wales who has been documenting and investigating the sightings, said: "This is one of the best videos we've seen. It seems a better demonstration of both the size and the cat-like movement of its walk than any I've seen before from North Wales.

"Also think it's pretty surreal that it's yet another Pontybodkin sighting. I think this makes four in as many months - and that's actual Pontybodkin, without counting all the sightings across the region the national press tend to claim is the same animal. Not that it couldn't be the same animal with the distance they can travel, but it seems more likely to me that regular sightings 20+ miles away would be other animals, than one which pops up all over but keeps returning to Pontybodkin."

He added: "Last month, a 'black, athletic-looking puma' was spotted just a few fields away as a van driver passed through the Hartshead Estate early one morning. A few days before that, another local resident, Andy, got in touch via our Facebook and told us: 'I seen a big cat the other night riding home from a friend’s near Pontybodkin. It was huge and it was fast. Definitely was a puma or panther. Big black thing with a massive tail'."

There have been a spate of sightings across Flintshire and Denbighshire. and a video of a large black cat in Trelogan this month was linked to the "Puma of Pontybodkin" in the national media.

However, the Trelogan big cat turned out to be Sheldon, a monstrous-sized Moggy owned by Sara Goodenough, who described him as “the biggest softy ever”.

But, back in November, a large black cat was caught on video by Toby Matthews.

Toby, a hypnotherapist living in Caergwrle, was walking his dog by torchlight when the beam landed on the shape of a big cat ahead of him at the Wood Pit Nature Reserve between Pontybodkin and Llanfynydd.

Then, Toby said: “I was going along sending a Snapchat, it was a bit misty and spooky and I just wanted to show my partner, so I was actually looking at my phone screen when I first spotted something big moving.

“I looked up and had a sudden moment of shock, almost like when you wake up suddenly from a dream feeling like you’re falling. Maybe 50 or 60 feet away was an enormous black cat looking right at me. I had my phone in one hand and both the dog’s lead and the torch in the other, so when I looked up I managed to drop the torch. I picked it back up and looked around again."

The sightings of big cats in that part of Flintshire are not a recent phenomenon. In 2006, Tiger King star Carole Baskin wrote on Big Cat Rescue’s website: “Earlier this year there were confirmed reports and prints of a puma near Treuddyn and Leeswood near Mold.”

However, the spate of sightings and encounters recently led to Clwyd West MS Darren Millar raising the issue in the Senedd when he called on the Welsh Government to investigate.