The wildcat was a great, yellow and unfriendly beast that freely roamed the magical Land of Oz. It had ugly, yellow teeth and red eyes like balls of fire.
In order to rescue the Queen of the Field Mice, the Tin Woodman chopped off the wildcat's head while it was chasing her. To thank him, she and her mouse subjects helped him and the Scarecrow rescue the Cowardly Lion from the deadly field of Poppies. (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)
Adaptations[]
In some retellings, the Tin Man simply frightens away the wildcat rather than killing it. Examples include the 1986 anime The Wonderful Wizard of Oz episode 5, and the Toto-centric novels Toto's Tale and True Chronicle of Oz by Sylvia Patience and Toto: The Dog-Gone Amazing Story of the Wizard of Oz by Michael Morpurgo.
In The Chronicles of Oz, the wildcat is an agent of the Wicked Witch of the West sent to assassinate the mouse queen as part of his mistress' campaign to expand her empire into the rest of Oz in the wake of the chaos unleashed by the Munchkinland civil war that the Wicked Witch of the East's death started.