Over the past few weeks, I’ve been able to share some pretty cool trail camera images — so many, in fact, that we’ve built a little series of blogs out of the “mystery beast” franchise.

In what may be the understatement of the year, I’ll tell you that those blog posts have been pretty popular among readers: Thousands and thousands of you have stopped by to check out the critters, and several of you have shared your thoughts on what kind of animals have been caught on camera.

Today, I’ve got a photo that just may knock your socks off … or make you want to stop walking through the Maine woods.

Here’s the email I received from Gordon Karlgren of Grafton, Mass.

“I just got back from hunting in the town of Wayne, Maine. My friend Stuart Smith of Wayne showed me the article of the mystery animal that was in the Bangor Daily [News],” Karlgren wrote. “Stuart, who is a Maine Master Guide, asked me to send you this photo that I captured back in October.

“Stuart’s friend Nate was out in the same area bow hunting when he saw what he believes was a huge black coyote. Stu called me a couple of days later to let me know what Nate saw while hunting,” Karlgren wrote. “I returned to Wayne at the end of October to retrieve the SD card from the game cam. I wanted to see what was captured and what’s been going on in the area we hunt. After scanning the pictures, we came across what we think is the same predator that Nate talked about.”

Without further ado, here’s the photo that Kalgren captured on his trail camera:

The mystery beast of Wayne, Maine, chases its prey. What do you see? (Photo courtesy of Gordon Karlgren)

“I’ve been hunting in Wayne for the past 29 years. In all those years, I’ve never come across a coyote during the November deer season,” Karlgren wrote. “I’ve only seen pictures in books and on the internet. The head on this predator is huge, wider than what I’ve seen of pictures of coyotes. What we thought was the tail of the predator appears to be the right hind quarter of the animal.