Kellas Cat

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The Kellas Cat is a black feline. It is a small cat found in Scotland. It was named by cryptozoologist Dr Karl Shuker after the village of Kellas in Moray, where it was first found in 1984, when a gamekeeper named Ronnie Douglas shot and killed one. Before then they were usually thought of as mythological, the few sightings dismissed as hoaxes.

The Kellas cat is described as being over 25 inches long, with powerful and long hind legs and a tail that can grow to be around 12 inches long. A specimen is kept in a museum in Elgin.

There was initial media speculation during the early-mid 1980s that the Kellas Cat may be an unclassified species, or at least a subspecies of the European Wildcat. However, in his book Mystery Cats of the World (1989), Karl Shuker predicted that it would prove to be an introgressive (complex) hybrid of domestic cat and Scottish wildcat. Eight specimens were subsequently collected and analyzed by Dr Andrew Kitchener of the Royal Museum in Edinburgh. He found that seven of the cats had traits of both house cats and wild cats, suggesting they are indeed most likely hybrids:

The Kellas cat specimens collected largely by Di Francis were subjected to a thorough examination by Dr Andrew Kitchener of the Royal Scottish Museum, in Edinburgh. Based on the evidence from eight collected specimens, he concluded that seven of the cats showed traits common to both Scottish wildcats and domestic cats. These cats were described as introgressive hybrids, representing animals with varying degrees of Scottish wildcat and domestic cat ancestry, which in turn accounted for the differing external characteristics exhibited by the type specimens.^{[citation needed]}

Given that both European Wildcats and domestic cats were present in Scotland since at least Roman times, Shuker suggested that the Cait Sidhe of Celtic mythology might well be based on folk memory of Kellas Cats.

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[edit] References

Karl Shuker: Mystery Cats of the World. Robert Hale: London 1989. ISBN 0-7090-3706-6
Karl Shuker: 'The Kellas cat: reviewing an enigma'. Cryptozoology, vol. 9, pp. 26-40 (1990)