Cryptids of Bernard Heuvelmans # 5: CATS 1 (Patreon)

I continue to finish and colourise the cryptids I'm illustrating for the Bernard Heuvelmans project. I've been working through the several cats on the list, and here are some initial results -- there are interesting things to say on the illustrating of all of these animals. In the montage above, you've already heard about (1) the Ile de Levant wildcat (I placed it in the montage for felid-completion reasons), but let's look at the new animals here...

(2) The mega-sized tabby-like crypto-cat the Mngwa or Nunda of Tanzania – a killer of humans, said to be bigger than a lion – is on the list. Heuvelmans liked the idea that this was a GIANT subspecies of the African golden cat, so my illustration of the animal deliberately took cues from golden cat anatomy and form. This explains why the illustration doesn't look like a conventional 'big cat', like a Panthera species. Mngwa stories are most likely based on garbled or embellished lion encounters; no evidence for a giant grey tabby-like mega-puss has emerged, sadly.

(3) Heuvelmans also included 'anomalous felines' from tropical Africa on his list, and included unusual lions, leopards and cheetahs in this category (this meaning that he was writing about several species, not one cryptid). He did specifically include the King cheetah though, even though he was very much aware of the fact that it isn't a cryptid, nor is it a new taxonomic form or anything like it (it's a local variant that crops up in populations due to expression of a recessive gene). Frankly, this entry is a total mess and an indication that his logic and thinking was a bit of a mess. Anyway... I drew a King cheetah. After I'd finished it I became concerned that I screwed up on the proportions (it looks to me like the forelimbs are too short), so I did an overlay with a photo. As you can see, the proportions are actually ok: the weirdness is due to the deep front of the chest I drew.

(4) The Marozi of Kenya and other spotted lions (reported from CAR, Cameroon, Uganda, Rwanda and Ethiopia) was also regarded by Heuvelmans as a cryptid, and potentially as a distinct taxon (Panthera leo maculatus, which Heuvelmans named in 1955). He thought this was a small, forest-dwelling lion, and a 'newly emerging' taxon (the idea that anomalous animals first regarded as cryptids might be 'newly emerging' forms is a popular idea in cryptozoology: it has also been applied to the King cheetah and Kellas cat). Skins of these lions exist (there's one in London) but it doesn't appear that they've ever been DNA tested. They're definitely from lions, but which form of lion remains uncertain to my knowledge. However, given that lions of several populations are known to sometimes retain spots relatively late in life, the case that this is a distinct taxonomic form is not strong.

Ok, that's it for now. Eventually all of these images will be composited together for a giant poster, and shared online in various formats too.