Nekomata

Nekomata (original form: 猫また, later forms: 猫又, 猫股, 猫胯) are a kind of cat yōkai told about in folklore as well as classical kaidan, essays, etc. There are two very different types, the beast that lives in the mountains, and the ones raised domestically that grow old and transform. It is often confused with Bakeneko.

In China, they are told of in stories even older than in Japan from the Sui dynasty like in 猫鬼 or 金花猫 that told of mysterious cats, but in Japan, in the Meigetsuki by Fujiwara no Teika in the early Kamakura period, in the beginning of Tenpuku (1233), August 2, in Nanto (now Nara Prefecture), there is a statement that a nekomata (猫胯) ate and killed several people in one night. This is the first appearance of the nekomata in literature, and the nekomata was talked about as a beast in the mountains. However, in the "Meigetsuki," concerning their appearance, it was written, "they have eyes like a cat, and have a large body like a dog," there are many who raise the question of whether or not it really is a monster of a cat, and since there are statements that people suffer an illness called the "nekomata disease (猫跨病^?)," there is the interpretation that it is actually a beast that has caught rabies. Also, in the essay Tsurezuregusa from the late Kamakura period (around 1331), it was written, "in the mountain recesses, there are those called nekomata, and people say that they eat humans... (奥山に、猫またといふものありて、人を食ふなると人の言ひけるに……^?)."

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Wikipedia