Kellas cat | |
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Mounted zoological specimen of a Kellas cat | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Carnivora |
Suborder: | Feliformia |
Family: | Felidae |
Subfamily: | Felinae |
Genus: | Felis |
Species: | |
The Kellas cat is a large black cat found in Scotland. It is an interspecific hybrid between the Scottish wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris syn. Felis silvestris grampia) and the domestic cat (Felis catus). Once thought to be a mythological wild cat, with its few sightings dismissed as hoaxes, a specimen was killed in a snare by a gamekeeper in 1984 [1] [2] and found to be a hybrid between the Scottish wildcat and domestic cat. [3] It is not a formal cat breed, but a population of felid hybrids. It is named after the village of Kellas, Moray, where it was first found.
The "dog-size" animal snared in 1984 was 38 centimetres (15 inches) to shoulder height and measured 110 cm (43 in) from nose to tail. [1] [4] When this find was reported, "[f]armers and gamekeepers responded immediately with claims that they had been shooting large black cats on Highland estates for years." [5] Skeptics initially dismissed the animal as "a very large feral domestic cat". [6]
A researcher at the National Museum of Scotland examined eight Kellas cat specimens. [7] One carcass was already in the Museum's collection; the remaining seven were supplied by Di Francis, [8] who was described by Thomas as a "writer, researcher and practical naturalist". [7] Thomas identified one of the animals as a melanistic wildcat; [7] this juvenile male was the first wildcat ever documented as melanistic in Scotland. [9] Most of the other specimens examined were concluded to be hybrids but more closely aligned to the Scottish wildcat; only one hybrid leaned more towards a domestic cat. [10]
The purported first live Kellas cat, a female, was caught at the Kellas estate by the Tomorrow's World team and featured in the 1986 episode "On the Trail of the Big Cat". [11] A second, male, was captured in 1988 in Inverness-shire. Both were kept for a time in the Highland Wildlife Park at Kincraig, then eventually taken on by Francis; she found them untameable but successfully bred them, producing the first litter of captive-born Kellas kittens. [12]
The Zoology Museum of the University of Aberdeen also holds a mounted specimen that was found during 2002 in the Insch area of Aberdeenshire. [13] Another specimen is kept in a museum in Elgin. [14] [ unreliable source ]
In 1988, in Dufftown, Moray, another wildcat-sized black animal was trapped and killed, and upon examination has been suggested to be a different species entirely, for having a very different skull structure, which is narrower and elongated, with a notably smaller brainpan, and unusual dentition. [15]
Media reports about the Kellas cat in the 1980s often confused it, despite it being not much larger than a house cat, with purported sightings throughout Britain of leopard-sized or larger creatures, sometimes said to be black, tawny, or striped, and blamed for various livestock killings. [16] While a single puma, that had escaped or been released from capitivity as an exotic pet, was captured humanely in 1980 in Cannich, Inverness-shire, [17] the remainder of such alleged great cats in Britain have proved to be elusive and dubious cryptids, generally regarded as urban legend.
The folklore of the cat-sìth ('fairy cat') may have been inspired by the Kellas cat. [18] The cat-sìth is a fairy creature from Celtic mythology, said to resemble a large black cat with a white spot on its chest. Legend has it that the ghostly cat haunts the Scottish Highlands. The legends surrounding this creature are more common in Scottish mythology, but a few occur in Irish mythology.
The historian Charles Thomas speculated that the Pictish stone at Golspie may depict a Kellas cat. [19] The Golspie stone, now held at the Dunrobin Castle Museum, shows a cat-like creature standing on top of a salmon, which may allude to the characteristics ascribed to a Kellas cat of catching fish while swimming in the river. [7]
Felis is a genus of small and medium-sized cat species native to most of Africa and south of 60° latitude in Europe and Asia to Indochina. The genus includes the domestic cat. The smallest Felis species is the black-footed cat with a head and body length from 38 to 42 cm. The largest is the jungle cat with a head and body length from 62 to 76 cm.
The wildcat is a species complex comprising two small wild cat species: the European wildcat and the African wildcat. The European wildcat inhabits forests in Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus, while the African wildcat inhabits semi-arid landscapes and steppes in Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, Central Asia, into western India and western China. The wildcat species differ in fur pattern, tail, and size: the European wildcat has long fur and a bushy tail with a rounded tip; the smaller African wildcat is more faintly striped, has short sandy-gray fur and a tapering tail; the Asiatic wildcat is spotted.
The Chinese mountain cat, also known as Chinese desert cat and Chinese steppe cat, is a small wild Felis species with sand-coloured fur, faint dark stripes on the face and legs and black tipped ears. It is endemic to the Tibetan Plateau of western China, where it lives in grassland above elevations of 2,500 m (8,200 ft). It has been listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 2002.
The serval is a wild cat native to Africa. It is widespread in sub-Saharan countries, except rainforest regions. Across its range, it occurs in protected areas, and hunting it is either prohibited or regulated in range countries.
A feral cat or a stray cat is an unowned domestic cat that lives outdoors and avoids human contact: it does not allow itself to be handled or touched, and usually remains hidden from humans. Feral cats may breed over dozens of generations and become an aggressive local apex predator in urban, savannah and bushland environments. Some feral cats may become more comfortable with people who regularly feed them, but even with long-term attempts at socialization, they usually remain aloof and are most active after dusk. Of the 700 million cats in the world, an estimated 480 million are feral.
The cat-sìth, in Irish cat sí, is a fairy creature from Celtic mythology, said to resemble a large black cat with a white spot on its chest. Legend has it that the spectral cat haunts the Scottish Highlands. The legends surrounding this creature are more common in Scottish folklore, but a few occur in Irish. Some common folklore suggested that the cat-sìth was not a fairy, but a witch that could transform into a cat nine times.
A felid hybrid is any of a number of hybrids between various species of the cat family, Felidae. This article deals with hybrids between the species of the subfamily Felinae.
The Cretan wildcat is a member of the genus Felis that inhabits the Greek island of Crete. Its taxonomic status is unclear at present, as some biologists consider it probably introduced, or a European wildcat, or a hybrid between European wildcat and domestic cat. It was previously considered a separate subspecies of wildcat as Felis silvestris cretensis.
The European wildcat is a small wildcat species native to continental Europe, Scotland, Turkey and the Caucasus. It inhabits forests from the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, Central and Eastern Europe to the Caucasus. Its fur is brownish to grey with stripes on the forehead and on the sides and has a bushy tail with a black tip. It reaches a head-to-body length of up to 65 cm (26 in) with a 34.5 cm (13.6 in) long tail, and weighs up to 7.5 kg (17 lb).
The Asiatic wildcat, also known as the Asian steppe wildcat and the Indian desert cat, is an African wildcat subspecies that occurs from the eastern Caspian Sea north to Kazakhstan, into western India, western China and southern Mongolia. There is no information on current status or population numbers across the Asiatic wildcat's range as a whole, but populations are thought to be declining.
The African wildcat is a small wildcat species with sandy grey fur, pale vertical stripes on the sides and around the face. It is native to Africa, West and Central Asia, and is distributed to Rajasthan in India and Xinjiang in China. It inhabits a broad variety of landscapes ranging from deserts to savannas, shrublands and grasslands.
The Corsican wildcat is an isolated cat population of uncertain taxonomic status that has been variously regarded as a separate species of its own, a subspecies of the African wildcat, or a population of feral house cats that were introduced to Corsica around the beginning of the first millennium.
The Caucasian wildcat is a European wildcat subspecies that inhabits the Caucasus Mountains and Turkey.
Felis lunensis, or the Martelli's cat is an extinct felid of the subfamily Felinae.
The Scottish wildcat is a European wildcat population in Scotland. It was once widely distributed across Great Britain, but the population has declined drastically since the turn of the 20th century due to habitat loss and persecution. It is now limited to northern and eastern Scotland. Camera-trapping surveys carried out in the Scottish Highlands between 2010 and 2013 revealed that wildcats live foremost in mixed woodland, whereas feral and domestic cats were photographed mostly in grasslands.
The Southern African wildcat is an African wildcat subspecies native to Southern and Eastern Africa. In 2007, it was tentatively recognised as a distinct subspecies on the basis of genetic analysis. Morphological evidence indicates that the split between the African wildcat subspecies in Africa occurred in the area of Tanzania and Mozambique.
Highland cat may refer to:
The Arabian wildcat, also called Gordon's wildcat is a wildcat subspecies that inhabits the Arabian Peninsula.
Schauenberg's index is the ratio of skull length to cranial capacity. This index was introduced by Paul Schauenberg in 1969 as a method to identify European wildcat skulls and distinguish them from domestic cat skulls.
The domestic cat originated from Near-Eastern and Egyptian populations of the African wildcat, Felis sylvestris lybica. The family Felidae, to which all living feline species belong, arose about ten to eleven million years ago and is divided into eight major phylogenetic lineages. The Felis lineage in particular is the lineage that the domestic cat is a member of. A number of investigations have shown that all domestic varieties of cats come from a single species of the Felis lineage, Felis catus. Variations of this lineage are found all over the world, and until recently scientists have had a hard time pinning down exactly which region gave rise to modern domestic cat breeds. Scientists believed that it was not just one incident that led to the domesticated cat but multiple, independent incidents at different places that led to these breeds. More complications arose from the fact that the wildcat population as a whole is very widespread and very similar to one another. These variations of wildcat can and will interbreed freely with one another when in close contact, further blurring the lines between taxa. Recent DNA studies, advancement in genetic technologies, and a better understanding of DNA and genetics as a whole has helped make discoveries in the evolutionary history of the domestic cat. Archaeological evidence has documented earlier dates of domestication than formerly believed.