TIME TO MEET AND GREET MY HIPPO-CAT! ANOTHER MYSTIFYING CRYPTO-CARVING(?) FROM AFRICA

Side views of my African 'hippo-cat' wooden carving – please click to enlarge (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Hot on the heels of the scaly mokele-mbembe-reminiscent mystery statuette documented by me in my previous ShukerNature post (click here) just a few days ago, here is a second incongruous iconographical object of the putatively cryptozoological kind. Yet whereas the only way for me to examine the former example directly would be to visit the Rosminian Missionary Fathers at Glencomeragh House, Clonmel, in County Tipperary, Ireland, where it is held, I don't have to travel anywhere near as far from my home in the West Midlands, England, in order to examine this latest item. In fact, I don’t even have to leave my home at all in order to do so, because it is right here in front of me, ensconced in my study. But to begin at the beginning…

Roughly 5-6 years ago, when my mother Mary Shuker was alive and still in good health, we would travel frequently and widely across England and Wales together visiting antique shops, collectors fairs, bric-a-brac markets, car boot sales, etc, where I would always be keeping a sharp lookout for anything unusual and potentially cryptozoological or zoomythological in nature. And it was at one such event (but, sadly, I can't remember where or when it was now, as we visited so many, so often, back then) where I saw the very distinctive, eyecatching wooden statuette that is the subject of this present ShukerNature blog article (and is depicted here in a series of photographs showing it from various sides and angles). What I do remember, however, is that when I asked its vendor about its origin, all that he knew was that it was African and had "probably" come from somewhere in West Africa.

More photos of my ambiguous animal statuette – please click to enlarge (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Approximately 9 in long and surprisingly heavy for its size, this enigmatic object was carved out of wood, had been stained a deep cherry-red shade, was very smooth to the touch and quite shiny (especially on the upper right flank, which was a little worn with the colour of its spotting there almost worn off), and was liberally patterned all over its body (including its underparts), limbs, tail, neck, and face with small, simple black spots (like those of a cheetah, as opposed to being arranged in rosettes like a leopard's). There was some slight damage to the right shoulder, and a superficial crack line lower down across that same limb.

The gaping mouth of the creature represented by this statuette possessed a pair of upper and lower canine teeth seemingly made from the cut-off ends of porcupine quills or some such other spiny items, but instead of being inserted vertically, they had been angled so as to project forward. Coupled with the beast's very large mouth (but most especially its extremely big, broad lower jaw), this made these teeth look rather like those of a hippopotamus.

Close-up, front views of my mystifying hipp0-cat – please click to enlarge (© Dr Karl Shuker)

Conversely, everything else about the creature was decidedly feline – its face (particularly its whiskers and triangular nose), the overall shape, proportions, pose, and poise of its body and limbs, its long tail with a very leonine tuft of black hair at its tip, its large clawed paws. Indeed, when I first saw it, I initially assumed that it was simply either an imaginative/stylised or else a rather crude/inaccurate portrayal of a leopard. But the more closely I examined it, the more I realised that both of these options were gross simplifications. In reality, it was a very skilfully made statuette, exhibiting all manner of nuances, from the discrete nature of every claw on its paws, and the vertical lines on its neck that in a living animal of this shape and size would indeed arise (constituting skin/muscle creases) when its head reared forward with mouth open wide in a roar or snarl of rage (the pose in which this statuette's creature had been carved), to the unexpected lateral striping rising up on each side of its body from its ventral surface (not what one would expect to see if the creature were meant to be a leopard), and the well-shaped, naturally-proportioned, powerful musculature of its body.

But what creature was it meant to be? It was much too burly and sturdy to be a leopard, and its lateral striping also argued against this identity, as did its leonine tail tuft. Yet its lack of a mane (the flat vertical neck lines offered no suggestion that they represented a mane), and its polka-dot, cheetah-like spotting that profusely patterned its entire form argued against its being a lion either (and even in rare cases of lionesses that have retained into adulthood a degree of spotting, the spotting in question takes the appearance of rosettes, like leopards, not dots as in cheetahs). Moreover, apart from its single shared feature of simple spotting, it bore no resemblance whatsoever to a cheetah.

Spotted hyaena (© AindriúH/Wikipedia CC BY 2.0 licence)

Could it conceivably be a spotted hyaena Crocuta crocuta? Again, it showed scant – if, indeed, any – similarity to this long-legged, slope-backed, superficially canine creature, other than its spotted coat. And how can we explain its oddly hippo-like lower jaw and teeth orientation? Also, did its staining with red dye have any zoological significance with regard to its creature's morphology and taxonomic identity?

Not surprisingly, faced with such a fascinating array of anomalies and questions associated with them, I was very keen to purchase this statuette, and after a little haggling I succeeded in doing so for £8 – definitely a bargain as far as I was concerned!

Some additional views of my hippo-cat carving – please click to enlarge (© Dr Karl Shuker)

When I arrived back home with it, I spent quite some time that evening online, browsing countless images of African carvings depicting lions, leopards, hyaenas, and hippos, produced by many different cultures and peoples, but I was unable to find any that even remotely resembled my statuette. On the contrary, whereas the latter seemed to be an embodiment of features drawn from all of these creatures, all of the online carvings that I saw were readily recognisable as lions (all with well-defined, furry manes), or leopards, or hippos, etc, with no confusion or overlapping of features between them. I have further browsed online for such carvings on several occasions since then (most recently while writing this present ShukerNature article today), but I have never found one that matches or is even reminiscent of mine.

So, could it be that my mystery statuette was not meant to be a real animal, but is instead merely a composite, uniting the tail and body of a lion with the simple dot-spotting of a cheetah and perhaps the face of a leopard, together with the mouth and teeth of a hippo, for instance, plus some attractive if wholly invented side striping and red body dye added by the sculptor just for good measure? This seems the most parsimonious, conservative explanation. Or might it actually be a representation of some mythical beast from the local folklore of wherever it was made? Needless to say, my quest for answers to this animal's identity has not been assisted by the lack of any precise provenance for this object – after all, West Africa (and only "probably" at that!) is a huge area containing numerous native peoples, and limitless versions and variations of traditional native lore.

Possible appearance of the vassoko or mountain tiger (© Tim Morris)

Or is it just conceivable that what I purchased on that long-bygone day is a portrayal of a bona fide cryptid? Well worth recalling here is that one of central-western Africa's most notable mystery beasts is the so-called mountain tiger or vassoko – an extremely large, ferocious crypto-felid said to be red in colour but also striped, and possessing a huge mouth containing very large, protruding teeth said to resemble the fangs of the officially extinct sabre-toothed cats or machairodontids. True, it is also said variously to be tailless or to possess only the shortest of tails, as opposed to a long, conspicuous, tufted tail of the kind sported by the creature represented by my carving. But this discrepancy might simply be a mistake on the part of the sculptor, who may not have based the creature's appearance on any firsthand sighting but only upon anecdotal reports that had potentially been confused, or were contradictory, or had been elaborated upon by their tellers.

When I posted some photos of this perplexing carving on Facebook earlier today, some viewers commented that it combined not only feline and hippopotamine (did I just invent a new word there??) similarities but also ursine ones. Might it therefore even be a representation of that most classic of all African cryptozoological composites, the legendary Nandi bear itself? True, although the latter has been likened to a wide range of different animals, including hyaenas, baboons, bears, honey badgers, even aardvarks and the supposedly extinct chalicotheres, it has not usually been compared with a felid form. Then again, in his seminal book On the Track of Unknown Animals (1958), Dr Bernard Heuvelmans did liken the Nandi bear to Proteus – an early marine deity in Greek mythology able to transform himself into a wide range of different creatures – on account of the inordinate diversity of morphological descriptions filed for this cryptid by eyewitnesses. So perhaps there is a feline component to the Nandi bear composite too. Who can say?

An African chalicothere (also featuring a cameo from one of my favourite birds, the hoopoe) (© Hodari Nundu)

Or, returning full circle in my analysing of this bewildering beast's possible  identity, could it simply be that its sculptor was in a playful, light-hearted mood when he was creating it, and so decided not to produce just another standard carving of some very familiar animal but rather a very striking, wholly original entity spawned by the fruitful union of his imagination and crafting skills – ultimately yielding a cherry-coloured conundrum, a veritable hippo-cat in fact, with which to baffle and delight in equal measure whoever saw it and subsequently purchased it?

After all, it's not as if cherry-coloured mystery cats are unprecedented in the annals of chicanery. Quoting from the North America-themed chapter in my very first book, Mystery Cats of the World (1989):

No chapter on North American feline mysteries and marvels would be complete without a mention of the celebrated cherry-coloured cat exhibited by that famed American showman Phineas Barnum. After having paid their money to see this wonderful animal, a few of its visitors later protested to Barnum that they had been both surprised and disappointed to discover that it was nothing more than an ordinary black cat. Barnum was quite unmoved by their remonstrance, for, as he reminded them, he had promised them a cherry-coloured cat and, after all, some cherries are black!

There's a lesson for cryptozoology in there somewhere.

Indeed there is!

Scale of my bemusing feline figurine – please click to enlarge (© Dr Karl Shuker)

For the most comprehensive modern-day documentation of the Nandi bear controversy, and also various reports of the vassoko or mountain tiger, please check out my new mega-book, Still In Search Of Prehistoric Survivors.

FROM BLACK LIONS TO LIVING SABRE-TOOTHS - MY TOP TEN MYSTERY CATS

Photoshopped  photograph of a black lion ((PAulie-SVK/deviantART.com)

As I have revealed in my very first book, Mystery Cats of the World (1989), and also in my very latest book, Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery (2012), among mammalian cryptids there is an unrivalled diversity of mystery cats on file. Some of these, the so-called alien big cats (ABCs) of black pantheresque or brown puma-like form frequently reported in particular from Britain, Continental Europe, North America, and Australasia, are most probably nothing more than escapee/released specimens of known but non-native species (or out-of-place native species in the case of pumas in the eastern USA). Much more exotic and intriguing are those crypto-cats that may be unconfirmed mutant forms of known species, entirely new but still-undescribed species, or even bona fide prehistoric survivors. So here, in no particular order, are my own personal Top Ten mystery cats of these more exotic varieties – check them out and decide for yourself what they might, or might not, be!

BLACK LION

Judging from the unprecedented amount of online interest in this particular mystery cat as well as various impressive but confirmed fake (i.e. photoshopped) photographs of such creatures that have been circulating on the Net for some time (one ShukerNature post of mine on this subject – click here – has so far notched up more than three quarters of a million hits in just a few months!), the black lion may well lay claim to being the most fascinating of all feline cryptids. Moreover, several sightings have been reported over the years, but none has ever been confirmed.

For instance, in his autobiography My Pride and Joy (1986), George Adamson of 'Born Free' fame briefly referred to "an almost entirely black lion" allegedly having been spied in Tanzania, but he provided no additional details. Six years earlier, wild cats author C.A.W. Guggisberg, writing to American cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, mentioned that black lion cubs had lately been reported from western Tanzania, but their existence had not been verified. In her book Okavango, June Kay included an account of a black lioness having been sighted at very close range; and at the end of the 19th Century archaeologist Sir Henry Layard apparently observed the body of a very dark brown lion killed by soldiers of the Luristan regiment. Most dramatic of all, however, was the claim made in 1940 by W.L. Speight that an experienced game warden had once stated that he had spied an entire pride of pitch-black lions in the Kruger National Park.

A second photoshopped photograph of a black lion (tumblr.com)

I cannot help but wonder whether such creatures as those were nothing more than ordinary lions that had rolled in thick black mud – photos of mud-caked lions show that they can indeed appear black in colour. Equally, however, melanism is a fully-confirmed phenomenon among several other species of wild cat, including the leopard, jaguar, serval, clouded leopard, and Temminck's golden cat, to name but a few. So perhaps a few genuine specimens of melanistic lion have indeed occurred from time to time – but until the existence of one is scientifically verified, the black lion must remain a cat of cryptozoology.

ONZA

On the evening of 1 January 1986, Andres Rodriguez encountered a very large form of cat near his home in Sinaloa, Mexico. Fearing that it was about to attack him, Rodriguez was forced to shoot it dead. He expected it to be either a puma Puma concolor or a jaguar Panthera onca, Mexico’s two largest species of cat, and was very surprised, therefore, to discover that it differed from both of them.

Although it resembled a puma in colour, the creature’s legs were longer and its body was much slimmer, so that in basic outline it seemed more like a cheetah. When a local naturalist examined it, he announced at once that it was an onza – Mexico’s legendary, third type of big cat.

The Rodriguez onza (International Society of Cryptozoology)

For over three centuries, Mexicans had been reporting sightings of a very distinctive form of long-limbed, tan-furred cat that they referred to as an onza, but scientists had always assumed that such accounts were merely based upon poorly-observed pumas. Now that a complete onza specimen had finally been obtained, however, it seemed that the Mexicans had been correct after all. But what is the onza? Several identities have been offered, including a starved puma, a crossbreed of puma and jaguar, a new puma subspecies, and a completely new species in its own right. Perhaps the most intriguing suggestion was that it is a bona fide living fossil. Twelve thousand years ago, the New World still housed a native species of puma-like cheetah (sometimes considered, conversely, to be a cheetah-like puma) known as Truman's cheetah Miracinonyx trumani, so could the onza be a direct descendant of this species?

The Rodriguez onza’s body was transported to a scientific laboratory in Mexico, where it became the subject of detailed research. Early studies showed that it contained adequate amounts of body fat, proving that it was not merely an emaciated puma, and further research ruled out the crossbreed option and also the living fossil possibility. Indeed, when the full studies were eventually published in the late 1990s, they revealed that no genetic differences had been found between this specimen and specimens of the puma, suggesting that despite its distinctive appearance the Rodriguez onza was nothing more than a puma after all. This find corresponded with the predictions made by me in 1998 when I opined in an article documenting this mystery cat that the onza as a whole was most probably no more than a somewhat gracile (long-limbed) mutant version of the puma (and hence would be extremely similar genetically to normal pumas), and that the Rodriguez specimen may not even be a genuine onza, but merely an infirm, malformed puma.

NUNDA

Judging from an appreciable amount of intriguing, reliable anecdotal evidence currently on record, Africa may house several types of large cat still eluding scientific detection. The most formidable of these is assuredly the nunda (‘fierce animal’) or mngwa (‘strange one’ in Swahili), reported from Tanzania's coastal forests. It is described by native hunters as a huge, terrifying man-eating cat, with tabby-striped fur, and great claw-bearing paws that leave behind tracks resembling a leopard's in shape, but comparable in size to those of the very largest lions.

Reconstruction of a nunda attack (William Rebsamen)

Victims of alleged attacks by nundas, as well as nunda fur and tracks, have been examined by animal experts, who are convinced that such a creature does exist. It has been suggested by some cryptozoologists that the ferocious nunda, which has occasionally been heard to purr but never roar, may be a gigantic version of the African golden cat Profelis aurata. This is a medium-sized species with an extraordinarily variable coat, which inhabits many parts of tropical Africa, and is greatly feared by its human neighbours, but is very elusive and rarely seen.

FUJIAN BLUE TIGER

In September 1910, while hunting in southeastern China’s Fukien (now Fujian) Province, American missionary Harry R. Caldwell was watching a goat when one of his native helpers directed his attention towards something else, moving nearby. Caldwell thought at first that it was another native, dressed in the familiar blue garment worn by many in that region, but when he peered more closely he realised to his great surprise that he was actually looking at the chest and belly of a very large tiger. However, this was no ordinary tiger, because its black-striped fur was not orange-brown in colour as in normal specimens, but was instead a very distinctive shade of blue.

Caldwell decided to shoot this extraordinary creature, in order to prove that it really did exist, but the tiger was watching two children gathering vegetation in a ravine nearby, and he knew that if he tried to shoot it from where he was sitting he might injure the children too. Consequently, he moved a little to one side, to alter the direction of his planned shot, but while he was doing this the tiger disappeared into the forest and was not seen by him again that day. Nevertheless, he knew that blue tigers had been spied several times here (Caldwell himself had sighted such a creature once before, in spring 1910), and others have been seen since, but none has ever been shot or captured, though a few tantalising blue hairs have been observed on their trails.

Painting of a Fujian blue tiger based upon Caldwell's description (William Rebsamen)

Although a blue tiger may seem impossible, in reality it is quite easily explained. Such tigers almost certainly possess two mutant gene forms that in combination are responsible for the smoky blue-mauve fur colouration (termed ‘blue dilution’) characterising the Maltese breed of domestic cat (as well as a few freak specimens of blue lynx and blue bobcat obtained over the years). As for its black stripes, these may well be a polygenic creation, i.e. they are due to the action of modifying genes functioning independently of the combined effect of the non-agouti and dilute alleles.

Indian white tigers are well known nowadays, and a black tiger was born at an Oklahoma zoo during the 1970s. So perhaps one day a Fujian blue tiger will be captured, finally confirming the reality of these beautiful if highly unusual, ethereal animals too.

DINGONEK

One of tropical Africa’s most extraordinary cryptids is an unexpectedly walrus-like water beast known to the Wa-Ndorobo tribe as the dingonek. Its most famous western eyewitness was an explorer called John Alfred Jordan, who in 1907 spied and unsuccessfully shot at one in the River Maggori (Migori), which runs into Lake Victoria. He described it as being 4.6-5.5 m long, covered in scales, with a spotted back as wide as a male hippo’s, hippo-sized footprints too but also possessing long claws, a broad tail, and a massive head whose jaws sported a huge pair of projecting walrus-like upper tusks. If the scales were merely clumps of wet fur, as some cryptozoologists have suggested, then the dingonek is probably mammalian and bears a close resemblance to similar mystery beasts reported elsewhere in Africa, such as the mourou n’gou (‘water leopard’) in the Central African Republic, the coje ya menia (‘water lion’) in Angola, and the simba ya mail (‘water lion’) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire).

Brackfontein Ridge cave painting of a walrus-like mystery beast

Veteran cryptozoologist Dr Bernard Heuvelmans boldly speculated that such creatures may represent living sabre-tooths that have become secondarily aquatic. Intriguingly, there is an ancient cave painting at Brackfontein Ridge in South Africa’s Orange Free State that depicts a still-unidentified creature bearing a remarkable resemblance to a walrus, including its long downward-curving tusks, lengthy elongated body, and paddle-like limbs. Moreover, unlike a true walrus but like the mystery beasts noted here, it also possesses a long tail. Could this be an early portrait of a dingonek-type cryptid?

QUEENSLAND TIGER

Since the mid-1800s, reports have regularly emerged from the forested areas of northern Queensland, Australia, that tell of confrontations by aboriginals and Western settlers with a large, tiger-like creature. Reportedly the size and shape of a leopard, but bearing black/dark grey and white bands around its body, with a distinctly cat-like head, and with very prominent, peculiarly tusk-like teeth at the front of its mouth, this unidentified feline animal has become known as the Queensland tiger or yarri (an aboriginal name for it, meaning ‘attack’ or ‘threaten’).

Due to its extremely aggressive nature, this cryptid has generally been avoided by eyewitnesses who have encountered it, but occasionally a specimen has been shot and killed. Ironically, however, not realising its scientific significance, on each occasion that this has happened its carcase has been discarded, rather than made available for scientific study. In one instance, the carcase was simply left outside, where its head and body were soon devoured by wild pigs, and its pelt rotted away.

The Queensland tiger, based upon eyewitness accounts (Dami Editore s.r.l.)

As almost all of Australia's native mammals are marsupials (pouched mammals), this mysterious beast is probably a marsupial too, but it does not resemble any living species discovered by science so far. A mere 10,000 years ago, however, many more Australian marsupials existed, including a sizeable cat-like species known as the marsupial lion Thylacoleo carnifex, whose fossil remains have been found in Queensland.

Very significantly, reconstructions of its likely appearance when alive, based upon studies of its remains, portray a creature bearing a remarkable resemblance to eyewitness descriptions of the Queensland tiger - sharing its size, shape, and even its strange tusk-like teeth (in Thylacoleo, its tusks were incisors, not canines, and were thus located at the front of its mouth, just like the Queensland tiger's tusks). As the marsupial lion is believed to have been a tree-climbing, forest-dwelling species, it was probably striped too, for effective camouflage.

Accordingly, some cryptozoologists have postulated that the Queensland tiger may turn out be a modern-day species of marsupial lion. Whether it proves to be a living species, conversely, is another matter; there have been very few reports of Queensland tigers in recent years, leading to speculation that this remarkable beast may have lately died out, before science was even able to confirm its reality, let alone its identity.

TSHENKUTSHEN

According to the Shuar Indians in the Macas region of Ecuador, this locality is home to a rare but very remarkable mystery cat known as the tshenkutshen or rainbow tiger – for good reason. Reputed to be the size of a jaguar, it is predominantly black in colour, but is ornately decorated with several stripes of different colours – black, white, red, and yellow – on its chest, “just like a rainbow”, in the words of one native hunter interviewed by Spanish cryptozoologist Angel Morant Forés during a visit to southern Ecuador in July 1999. Said to inhabit the Trans-Cutucú region, Sierra de Cutucú, and the Sangay volcano area near Chiguaza, Ecuador’s mystifying rainbow tiger is described by the Shuar as having monkey-like forepaws and being an exceptionally good tree-climber, leaping from tree-trunk to tree-trunk at great speed, and greatly feared as an extremely dangerous animal.

Representation of the tshenkutshen (Tim Morris)

One such cat may well have been killed in 1959 by Policarpio Rivadeneira, a Macas settler, while walking through the rainforest of Cerro Kilamo, a low mountain near the Abanico River. He had seen the creature leaping from tree to tree and, scared that it would attack him, shot it. When he examined it, he discovered that it was a jaguar-sized cat, but instantly distinguishable from all cats that he had ever seen by virtue of the series of multicoloured stripes running across its chest, as well as by a hump on its back, and also by its clawed but otherwise remarkably simian forepaws. Sadly, Rivadeneira does not appear to have retained the creature’s carcase, or even its pelt, so as yet there is no physical evidence available to verify this extraordinary felid’s existence.

I find it difficult to believe that any felid would exhibit such a dramatic pelt. Conversely, its arboreal adeptness calls to mind the southeast Asian clouded leopards, so I have less problem accepting this aspect of the rainbow tiger.

MOUNTAIN TIGER

The Zagaoua tribe of Ennedi in northern Chad, West Africa, believe in the existence of a remarkable mystery cat known as the mountain tiger or tigre de montagne. According to their testimony, this unidentified animal is as large as a lion, with red fur and white stripes, no tail, and a huge pair of fangs that project conspicuously from its mouth. When an old native game tracker was shown pictures of various animals, living and extinct, by Christian Le Noel, a French hunting guide, in the 1960s, he positively identified the mysterious mountain tiger as Machairodus – the African sabre-toothed tiger, officially believed to have died out over a million years ago.

The mountain tiger, based upon eyewitness accounts (Tim Morris)

A very similar creature to Chad’s mountain tiger has also been reported from the Central African Republic, where it is referred to variously as the gassingram and vassoko. The mountain ranges of these countries are extremely remote and little-explored, making it difficult to rule out the possibility that a large unknown species of cat does indeed exist here.

Moreover, comparable beasts have been documented from certain South American countries too, including Colombia and Peru, where they are said to be striped and extremely elusive, as well as from Mexico.

MAROZI

Kenya’s Aberdares Mountains are believed by local hunters as well as some western naturalists to harbour small maneless lions that retain their juvenile spots throughout their lives, instead of losing them when mature. Skins of this strange form of lion, referred to by native people here as the marozi (‘solitary lion’ – it does not live in prides like savannah lions do), have occasionally been obtained. One pair of skins – a male and female - received favourable attention and interest from carnivofre expert Reginald Pocock at London’s Natural History Museum, where they are still preserved.

A pair of marozis (William Rebsamen)

Sceptics dismiss marozis as merely freak specimens of the normal lion, but it is interesting to note that they are only reported from shady mountain forests, where their mottled coat, smaller body size, and near-absence in the male of a mane would all be favourable traits for a feline predator here, aiding camouflage and movement in this particular terrain. Perhaps the lion has evolved a distinct montane version, specifically adapted for success in this very different habitat from the lion’s more typical savannah home.

Supporting this possibility is the apparent existence of comparable mystery cats in other mountain ranges in East and Central Africa. Here they are referred to variously as the ntarargo (in Uganda), ikimizi (in Rwanda), bung bung (Cameroon), and abasambo (Ethiopia).

WINGED CATS

The concept of domestic cats with wings would normally be confined to fantasy books and ‘silly season’ tabloid stories, were it not for the remarkable fact that such creatures are unquestionably real. As the world’s leading investigator of winged cats, I have revealed and documented dozens of verified cases from around the world. One of the earliest, and still among the most famous, cases was that of a kitten from Wiveliscombe in Somerset, which was photographed in the Strand Magazine in November 1899, clearly revealing a pair of large fluffy wing-like extensions arising from its back.

Other noteworthy examples include: a black-and-white cat with a very sizeable pair of ‘flappable’ furry dorsal ‘wings’ that was captured in some stables at Summerstown, Oxford, in 1933 and later photographed for news reports and exhibited at the local zoo; a record-breaking Swedish example from 1949 with a wingspan of almost 30 cm; a beautiful winged Angora cat called Angolina, owned by a porter living near Spain’s Houses of Parliament, which entranced Madrid’s media in 1959; also in 1959, a specimen of confused sex from Pineville, West Virginia, known in press reports as Thomas-Mitzi that was the subject of an ownership case but shed its wings while being exhibited in court; another densely-furred winged cat photographed sometime prior to the 1970s that made a home for itself in a Manchester builder’s yard; a fluffy-winged tabby spied in April 1995 in Backbarrow, Cumbria, and owned by the village’s retired postman; a Japanese specimen stroked by Rebecca Hough while staying in Kumamoto, Kyushu, on 23 May 1998; and even a historical report of a winged cat encountered in some woods at Walden, in Concord, Massachusetts, by writer Henry David Thoreau and later documented by him in his book Walden; Or Life in the Woods (1854).

The Anglesey winged cat (Wyn Williams)

Yet despite the relative abundance of winged cat reports and photos, any explanation for these extraordinary animals remained conspicuous only by its absence, until in the early 1990s I uncovered the long-awaited answer while researching for clues in various obscure tracts of veterinary literature. I discovered that true winged cats (as opposed to ones whose wings are merely clumps of matted fur) exhibit a rare, little-known genetic disorder known as feline cutaneous asthenia (FCA), in which the skin is extremely stretchable, especially on the back, haunches, and shoulders – so much so that even if a cat with FCA merely rubs itself against something, or grooms itself with its paws, this can be enough to stretch its skin outwards in long, furry, wing-like extensions. And because these extensions often contain muscle fibres, they can sometimes even be gently raised or lowered, exactly as reported by certain winged cat eyewitnesses. Moreover, because the skin of FCA cats is so fragile, occasionally the wings are stretched out too far, and they will then simply peel away from the rest of the cat’s skin, falling off as if moulted and without any bleeding occurring, which would therefore explain Thomas-Mitzi’s dramatic loss of wings in the courtroom. After countless years of baffling their startled observers, the mystery of the winged cats was finally solved.

Some of the above accounts are excerpted or adapted from those that I wrote for Chambers Dictionary of the Unexplained (2009). For additional information concerning all of the mystery cats documented here, and many others too, don't miss my latest book, Cats of Magic, Mythology, and Mystery (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2012).