PEABODY - Wolverine or fisher cat?

That's what Anthony Road residents are wondering after an animal they'd never seen before came strolling from one backyard, across the street and behind another home yesterday afternoon.

Too big for a cat or a raccoon. Too small to be a bear. And it definitely wasn't a dog.

"I've never seen anything that looked like that," said Linda Vecchione, 49, of Peabody who was the first of three people to see the animal yesterday as it walked across her cousin's backyard in their South Peabody neighborhood at about 4:30 p.m.

Both animals are listed in the MassWildlife state mammal list. But the wolverine is listed as extirpated, completely wiped out, and hasn't been seen in Massachusetts since 1835. Fishers - often called fisher cats - exist statewide except Duke and Nantucket counties.

Whatever the animal was, one thing is certain: Its presence set residents on edge.

Seeing a creature she'd never seen before capped a crazy day at home with the kids for Stephanie Mastrocola, 34, of 12 Anthony Road. First, her daughter banged her head and she wasn't sure if she needed stitches. Soon afterward, her cousin, Vecchione, who was sitting on the living room couch holding Mastrocola's newborn son, Matthew, was the first to see the brownish-black animal similar to a medium-sized dog.

The mystery animal came across her cousin's backyard, managing to climb over the 6-foot privacy wood fence surrounding the back property.

Vecchione called out to the kitchen for Mastrocola, and the two saw the animal walk past the living room's sliding glass door and continue over the gate.

"I didn't know what kind of animal it was," Mastrocola said. She remembers the mink-colored fur, the teeth and the claws. "I know it wasn't a raccoon or a possum or a coyote."

Mastrocola called police and her neighbor, Judy Richard, 59, of 16 Anthony Road. Richard has a day-care center at her home, watching over five children, and Mastrocola wanted to make sure they weren't outside.

Just before Mastrocola called, Richard's husband, Donnie, returned home after running a few errands. As he pulled into Anthony Way, which leads into Anthony Road from Forest Street, he saw the same animal.

"It went right in front of the car," Donnie said. "I thought, 'What the hell is that thing?' You gotta be kidding me."

He turned right onto Anthony Road and followed the animal for about 30 yards in his car until it went in his neighbor's backyard.

When Donnie arrived home, he told his wife what he saw.

He had also seen a strange animal last Friday before the Richards were going out for dinner. He saw only the tail end of the animal but knew it was nothing he'd seen before.

After Donnie recalled the details to his wife, Mastrocola's call came in to warn her about the animal she'd just seen moments before.

"Everything she said matched the description from my husband," Richard said. She looked in an old textbook about animals and came to a picture of the wolverine. Her husband said that was the animal he saw.

When Judy told Mastrocola that it may have been a wolverine, Mastrocola later checked the Internet and it was a match.

Peabody police responded to the area shortly afterward but said the animal was gone.

"They have them in Alaska and in Canada, but how would it end up in Peabody?" Judy asked. "If it isn't a wolverine, it's close."

Fisher cats and wolverines both come from the mustelidae family, the Latin word for weasels. Mastrocola later last night began to think the animal may have been a fisher cat.

No matter how the mystery plays out, Mastrocola said she hopes neighbors will be careful when they're out in their yards. Whatever the creature is, it could be rabid or otherwise dangerous.

"Neighbors should be alert just in case," she said.

Staff writer Bruno Matarazzo Jr. can be reached by e-mail at bmatarazzo@ecnnews.com or by calling 978-338-2525.