In which the author becomes a museum piece…

 

(c) 2011 University of Aberdeen, Kings Museum, ‘100 Curiosities Exhibit’

 

Badass big cats. I love them, especially when they turn up in areas where they have no right to be, to perplex and bamboozle us with their out-of-place predator-feline activities. From the Surrey Puma and the Beast of Bodmin to more recent sightings of alleged panthers and pumas in Scotland, these cats have been an enduring cryptozoological mystery.

 

So when Scotland’s newest museum, the King’s Museum in the University of Aberdeen, asked if I would choose an object for their opening exhibition 100 Curiosities, I knew exactly which specimen to pick. The exhibition draws on the massed collections within Aberdeen’s several museums, and I knew that nestling within the glass cases of the city’s stupendously wonderful Zoology Museum was a stuffed and mounted Kellas Cat, which has a tangential if fascinating relationship with the whole question of just what these cats are.

 

Here’s the description I wrote for the card that accompanies the cat in the King’s Museum:

“Out-of-place animals such as ‘ABCs’ or Alien Big Cats hold a special attraction for researchers of the supernatural and strange. Are pumas, panthers, lynxes and other exotic felids roaming our countryside? In some cases the answer is definitely yes, as physical specimens have turned up in Inverness-shire and the Borders. The Kellas Cat – named after a Morayshire village – isn’t an ABC, as it’s actually a bad-tempered hybrid of the domestic moggie and the Scottish Wildcat. But I suspect this black-furred bruiser is responsible for some of the reported sightings of ‘big cats’ in the North-East of Scotland. Nice kitty…

Geoff Holder, author of The Guide to Mysterious Aberdeen.

 

Early museums grew out of the strange and bizarre ‘Cabinets of Curiosities’ assembled by wealthy gentlemen (there is a splendid recreation of one in the British Museum), so it is only appropriate that the King’s Museum is acknowledging the past with this opening exhibition. You should go, as admission is free, and the eclectic collection is definitely worth a visit.

 

The King’s Museum opened in April 2011 and can be found at

17 High Street,

Old Aberdeen,

Aberdeen AB24 3EE

Tel 01224 272000

Opening hours are 9.30am-4.30pm Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, 9.30am-7.30pm on Tuesday, and 11.00am-4.00pm Saturday.

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/kingsmuseum/

 

And while you’re in the area, check out the Zoology Museum. In weird creature feature terms, it’s utterly scrumptious.

 

I would like to thank the King’s Museum for the invitation to choose this specimen. And if any other museum curators out there want to get in touch, I have an idea for an exhibition entitled Dinosaurs, Daleks and Druids…