Werecats

A werecat is a breed of shape-shifter that can transform parts or the entirety of their body from human form into that of a feline, and back again. In this, they are similar to werewolves, and like werewolves, usually require a specific type of stimuli in order to affect the change. A person who turns into a werecat may develop feline physical characteristics such as fur, claws, cat-eyes, sharpened teeth, etc. They will usually develop enhanced strength, durability, speed and agility.

An example of werecats found in comic books are the Cat People, featured in titles published by Marvel Comics. The Cat People are actually a race of demons who hail from an infernal realm known as the Land Within. The superhero known as Tigra inherited her abilities from these people.

The 1992 film Sleepwalkers centered on a family of werecats represented by the characters of Mary Brady and her son, Charles Brady. They were nomadic beings who prolonged their lives by siphoning the life energy from virgin women. Although they assumed the mystical form of werecats, they did not actually share kinship with cats. In fact, cats were their mortal enemies as they could see through their illusory forms and actually cause them injury.

On the HBO television series True Blood, there are a race of shape-shifters that are werpanthers. These werepanthers believed in keeping their bloodline pure by interbreeding. Unfortunately for the panthers, this had actually proven to be their downfall as the lack of genetic drift through generations of inbreeding had rendered them virtually extinct. In the town of Hotshot, a group of werepanthers abducted a human named Jason Stackhouse in the hopes of turning him into a werepanther that could serve as their "Ghost Daddy" - a paternal figure that they falsely believed might help them to propagate their numbers. While Jason never became a werepanther in the series, he did become one in the "Southern Vampire Mysteries" series of novels by Charlaine Harris from which the TV show is based.