  We present deep optical integral-field spectroscopic observations of the
nearby (z ~ 0.01) brightest cluster galaxy NGC 4696 in the core of the
Centaurus Cluster, made with the Wide Field Spectrograph (WiFeS) on the ANU
2.3m telescope at Siding Spring Observatory. We investigate the morphology,
kinematics, and excitation of the emission-line filaments and discuss these in
the context of a model of a minor merger. We suggest that the emission-line
filaments in this object have their origin in the accretion of a gas-rich
galaxy and that they are excited by v ~100-200 km/s shocks driven into the cool
filament gas by the ram pressure of the transonic passage of the merging system
through the hot halo gas of NGC 4696.
