A BIG cat expert has dedicated a new book to thousands of mystery sightings around Dorset.

Author Merrily Harpur, of Cattistock, said that the county is a 'hotspot' for sightings of the beasts.

Now she has produced a book called Roaring Dorset! Encounters with Big Cats.

In the book, she lists various sightings and claims that big cat encounters are more likely here than in Africa's Serengeti.

She will launch the book at the Dorset County Show on September 6 and 7.

Ms Harpur said: "This book is in the form of a gazetteer so people can have fun looking up where they live and seeing what big cat sightings there have been.

"In Dorset you are probably never more than half a mile away from a big cat.

"It's incredible, and I am particularly interested in Dorset because I live here.

"There have been bit cat sightings in Dorset for a long time.

"And the ones that get reported are only the tip of the iceberg."

Ms Harpur first identified Dorset as a big cat hotspot two years ago in another book called Mystery Big Cats.

Since then she has continued her research into the topic, taking details of continuing sightings.

She added: "Dorset is quite interesting because it has quite a variety of big cats. For instance, we have had quite a few sightings of lynx-like animals. They creep up occasionally in the rest of the country but Dorset seems to have more of them."

The first big cat sighting or encounter with Anomalous Big Cats (ABC) in Dorset was 150 years ago.

The book chronicles some 223 sightings in Dorset and includes several photographs of unexplained black creatures in fields.

It features accounts drawn from newspaper reports and first-hand interviews.

Contributors in the new book include farmers, taxi drivers, teachers, holidaymakers and police.

Some people say that big cats are descended from the travelling menageries of Victorian showmen, the biggest of which, Wombwells, passed through Dorset a number of times between 1855 and 1868.

Others that they can be traced to the captive animals released in the wake of the 1976 Dangerous Wild Animals Act that outlawed the keeping of unlicensed wild creatures.

The new book costs £4.99 and will be available at the Roving Press stand in the shopping marquee of the Dorset County Show.