It was simply a large domestic cat, Teddy Bear, basking in the sunshine.

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The species, which was about the size of a domestic cat, lived between 100 and 200 million years ago.

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Meanwhile the domestic cat population has risen steadily, overtaking dog numbers in 1993 to stand now at about 8m, twice as many as there were in 1965.

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They maintain what they saw was not a domestic cat.

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"This is a small mammal, no bigger than a domestic cat and by nature it's not going to be looking for a confrontation with dogs or cats or anything like that, " he said.

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Dr O'Donoghue says that these 19th Century wildcats show the size and power of this species - saying that they were as different from a domestic cat as a wolf from a dog.

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The Domestic Cat (Felis catus).

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