It is the case of the missing wild cat and, no, we’re not talking about all those players who have left the Kansas State basketball team.

On Monday — the day of the KU-KSU basketball game — city officials weren’t sure what had happened to the carcass of a dead feline that some had speculated would provide proof of a much-rumored mountain lion that roams west Lawrence.

But a spokesman for the Lawrence Police Department, whose officers found the carcass in the 2200 block of Bob Billings Parkway on Sunday evening, said he didn’t think the remains were going to solve the mountain lion mystery.

“The officer said he’s not an expert on it, but it looked like a bobcat to him,” said Sgt. Matt Sarna.

But, it appears, we’ll never know. Sarna said the officers moved the carcass to the median of the road, and asked for the city’s sanitation department to come pick up the remains.

But when sanitation workers arrived Monday morning to pick up the carcass, it was gone, a spokesman in the sanitation department said.

That likely will allow some to contend that indeed mountain lions do roam the western hills of Lawrence — a contention several naturalists question. Bobcats — unlike mountain lions — are not overly uncommon in parts of western Lawrence. Just ask neighbors of the area.

“Between the bobcats and the deer, we have herds of them out here,” said Kylee Manahan, who lives in the area off Terrace Road. “We were sad to hear that one got hit.”

Or did it?