LARS THOMAS: Here kitty kitty

For many years I have been convinced that winged cats were something only my esteemed colleague Karl Shuker were capable of discovering, but lo and behold, a couple of weeks ago I stumbled across a photo of a winged cat from Denmark. The photo, taken by animal health inspector Jesper Pedersen this summer in the town of Frederikshavn in northern Denmark (with a mobile phone, hence the poor quality), shows a rather large reddish cat with almost angelic wings stretching out from the middle of the back. The cat, and "a strange growth flapping around on it's back" was discovered by local residents in a suburb in Frederikshavn. The inspector, who works for a nationwide cat rescue service in Denmark, was able to catch the cat. The animal, a stray, with no collar or any other identification, was in a very sorry state, and was put down by a veterinarian. The photo was taken after this. A closer examination of the "growth" on the back revealed that it consisted entirely of hair. Unfortunately neither the vet nor the animal inspector preserved the cat or the wings.