Researchers identify first novel wildcat species in 100 years

Researchers have identified a new species of wild cat in Bolivia, marking the first discovery of a previously unknown species of its kind in almost 100 years.

Named Leopardus tilcayo, or the tilcayo tiger cat, is smaller than a typical domestic cat, it inhabits the Bolivian Yungas, a cloud forest where the Andes meet the Amazon basin in South America, as highlighted in an article by National Geographics.

The species was formally described for the first time in the journal Current Biology this week.

“It’s a cat. That’s really novel. And it hasn’t happened in 100 years,” said Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a co-author of the study who leads the Bolivian Felid Research and Conservation Program.

“No one else had named it. No one else had described it,” she added.

Nogales-Ascarrunz first noticed the animal, which is spotted and features round ears, while volunteering at the Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary, a wildlife rehabilitation centre near La Paz in Bolivia.

“I saw this cat. It was really, really small, and I couldn’t believe how small it was,” she said. “I thought it was a kitten.”

She later conducted genetic testing using tissue from the tiger cat and a second animal that was also found at Senda Verde. 

The results showed that the two specimens were unique and belonged to the same species, which diverged from other tiger cat lineages about 1.4 million years ago. That genetic difference was sufficient for researchers to classify the animal as a new species.

Unlike many recently identified mammal species, Leopardus tilcayo was not the result of splitting a species already known to science into two based on genetic differences.

“We didn’t have specimens in museums,” said Tadeu de Oliveira, a co-author of the study and an ecologist at the State University of Maranhão in Brazil. “It had never been collected before.”

The size of the Leopardus tilcayo population remains unknown, with the researcher urging that more science and studies are needed to answer this question, which is critical for the species' conservation.

Scientists identify around 65 new mammal species each year, according to a study released last year, but most are small animals. It is relatively rare to discover a new species of a larger mammal.

Tiger cats, a group of small wild cats in the Leopardus genus native to South and Central America, already face significant conservation challenges as development and agriculture expand.

The new study identifies five tiger cat species in South America, with de Oliveira warning that all of them are in habitats that are vanishing fast.

By Nazrin Sadigova