New Wild Cat Species *Leopardus tilcayo* Discovered After More Than 100 Years

A new species is not discovered every day.

In fact, the average is nearer 44 species daily, with science identifying more than 16,000 new organisms each year.

Many of those discoveries are insects, arthropods, plants or fungi – all of them remarkable.

Leopardus tilcayo: a newly identified wild cat

Now, however, we have had the rare privilege of seeing what may be a once-in-a-lifetime find: a new cat.

Its scientific name is Leopardus tilcayo, and it is the first living wild cat species to be described in more than a century. The previous one was the Uruguayan pampas cat (Leopardus colocola), formally identified in 1923.

The fluffy, conclusive evidence is a 10-year-old cat known as ‘Tigrino’.

Remarkably, this inaugural example has been in science’s sight since 2017. It lives at Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary in Bolivia’s Yungas, a cloud-forest ecoregion where the Andes descend towards the Amazon River basin.

Tigrino arrived there because of its kitten-like charm: a family had previously ‘adopted’ it, but could not make the animal into a domestic cat.

At last, they – and everyone else – know the reason.

This newly celebrated felid, reluctantly surrounded by crowds of staring visitors and presumably subjected to plenty of pspspsps, measures just 46 centimetres from its small head to the base of its waving tail.

It weighs only 1.4 kilograms, too, placing it below the size of an average domestic cat and making it effectively minuscule in chonker culture.

Genomes reveal tiger cat diversity

A large international group of conservationists and researchers has now described this cat and its “tiger cat” relatives, genetically as well as ecologically, in a paper published in the journal Current Biology.

The team examined the complete genomes of 38 members of the Leopardus genus. These included 30 modern cats – among them 12 genomes already published – plus eight museum specimens.

For comparison, they also used two more distantly related “outgroup” species: the bigger, less leopard-like jungle cat (Felis chaus) and the puma (Puma concolor).

With the obvious exception of L. tilcayo, these Leopardus tiger cats have been recognised for much longer than a century. Their taxonomic namesake, the oncilla (Leopardus tigrinus), was identified in 1775.

“In combination with ecological studies, we ultimately hope to understand how anthropogenic activities will impact the conservation of tiger cats,” the researchers explain. The animals were “once considered a single, broadly distributed species and now understood as five distinct species, each of which is likely adapted to a distinct environment.”

The researchers estimate that the earliest division among tiger cats took place more than 2.3 million years ago, after the Great American Biotic Interchange. This evolutionary exchange between North and South America followed the emergence of the Isthmus of Panama from the sea, joining the continents.

The team also identified a new subspecies, the Peruvian Leopardus tigrinus antisuyo. It differs from L. tilcayo through its shorter coat, less bushy tail and distinct markings – the subtle physical traits that distinguish the tiger cats.

Conservation priorities for tiger cats

Unfortunately, tiger cats have largely experienced long-term population reductions of up to 80 percent across the past two epochs, a span reaching as far back as 2.58 million years.

None of the new samples, however, showed high levels of inbreeding. Such inbreeding has been found in other isolated or declining populations, including historical felids such as the famous sabre-toothed cats.

For now, “We really don't know how many cats are still in the wild,” says Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a National-Geographic-sponsored conservationist and study co-author who helped identify L. tilcayo at the sanctuary.

Crucially, L. tilcayo is also drawing attention to conservation. Its name is the first reason: rather than honouring a discoverer, it comes from the local name used by cloud-forest communities, which have known this small tiger for generations.

Second, “Tigrino has become, in just a few days, an ambassador for conservation,” says Marcelo Levy, co-founder of the sanctuary where Tigrino lives.

“He's such a tiny animal, and he has become something so important.”

Through this work, the researchers have demonstrated the usefulness of genomic analysis in separating closely similar species and identifying their individual requirements.

Every tiger cat type requires distinct, well-informed protection, “implying major changes in current strategies employed to determine challenges, goals, and priorities for ensuring their long-term survival,” the researchers conclude.

This research was published in Current Biology.

This article was fact-checked by Rachel Garner and edited by Peter Dockrill. Although we take pride in our process, we are only human. If you spot an error, please let us know.