A catgirl is a woman or girl with cat ears and a cat tail, but an otherwise human body; they are found semi-commonly in anime and manga. Catgirls aren't anthropomorphic cats (furries), as they look completely human (or almost completely human) if their ears and tails are ignored. Catgirls wishing to look especially cute will wear over-sized mittens and shoes that look like paws.
Other woman/animal combinations are sometimes found, like fox girls. Catboys are rather rare, and usually only seen in web comics or fan art.
In Japanese, catgirls are usually called nekomimi (猫耳) -- literally, "cat ears". Nekomusume (猫娘) -- 'cat girl' -- appears only occasionally, as in the anime series All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku (which stars a quite different type of catgirl then described here.)
List of cat girl characters
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