I' m not going to weigh in on whether the picture is real or not, but for facts sake I think a point needs to be mentioned again. As mentioned above, the referenced length of a fullgrown, healthy male mountain lion can be 9 feet long, with mention of the P&Y animal being an amazing 9 1/2 feet long.

What was not clearly mentioned is that the tail makes up almost exactly 1/3 of that length, making the largest body length of ANY mountain lion being just over 6 feet from anus to nose tip. Looking at the picture with that in mind, the cat " could" be real because it would be in that range based on the mans size.

The places you can reference the size of mountain lions are state wildlife agencies, american zoological society and several million animal information web sites.