  We have observed with XMM-Newton the extended 4 Mpc filament detected by the
ROSAT PSPC in the neighbourhood of the cluster of galaxies Abell 85. We confirm
that there is an extended feature, aligned at the same position angle as the
major axis of the central cD, the bright cluster galaxies, and nearby groups
and clusters. We find that the X-ray emission from the filament is best
described by thermal emission with a temperature of about 2 keV, which is
significantly lower than the ambient cluster medium, but is significantly
higher than anticipated for a gas in a weakly bound extended filament. It is
not clear whether this is a filament of diffuse emission, a chain of several
groups of galaxies, or stripped gas from the infalling south blob.
