First New Wild Cat Species in a Century Found in Bolivia

Scientists have named Leopardus tilcayo, a tiny spotted wild cat from Bolivia's Yungas forests and the first new living cat species described in over 100 years.

A previously unknown cat species has been identified in plain sight at a wildlife sanctuary in Bolivia, where a small, spotted feline had been living for years. According to AP reporting carried by WVLT, the discovery — reported Thursday in the journal Current Biology — marks the first time in more than a century that scientists have named and described a new living wild cat species. Bolivian biologist Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a National Geographic explorer and one of the study's lead authors, examined the cat after a colleague thought it looked unusual. A local family had left it at the sanctuary in the Yungas region after finding it in the forest and struggling to keep it as a pet.

What struck Nogales-Ascarrunz was the animal's size. According to WVLT's report, the male — now about 10 years old — measures just 18 inches (46 centimeters) from head to the base of the tail and weighs 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms), smaller than an average house cat, with a light brown coat patterned with dark, leopard-like spots. To place the cat in South America's feline family tree, researchers compared genomes from more than 30 cats across Colombia, Peru and Brazil, using DNA from bones and skins preserved in U.S. and European museums to fill gaps where fresh samples were unavailable. The analysis revealed the sanctuary cat belonged to a previously unrecognized species whose lineage split from its relatives about 1.4 million years ago. The last feline species formally identified was the Uruguayan pampas cat in 1923.

The findings also unraveled a longstanding puzzle about South America's tiger cats, which scientists once classified as a single species because they look so alike. According to AP reporting carried by WVLT, the DNA analysis pointed to at least five distinct species — four previously named, plus the newly described tilcayo. The researchers named the cat Leopardus tilcayo, preserving the moniker used by communities in the tropical cloud forests of the Andes in Bolivia where the animal lives. "This isn't an animal that nobody had ever seen before. Local communities knew it existed, but until now science had not recognized it as a separate species," said Wai-Ming Wong of the wild cat conservation group Panthera, who had no role in the research.

Researchers still know little about the tilcayo in the wild: its presence has been confirmed only in Bolivia's Yungas forests, and its full range, diet and behavior remain unknown, WVLT reports. Scientists hope the new designation will help protect its habitat, which faces accelerating deforestation and gold mining. The find lands in a striking week for biology — Stanford Medicine separately reported on Sept. 18 that the human brain forms from two distinct progenitor lineages, a finding published in Nature Neuroscience — and both results underscore how much fundamental biology remains hidden. "Even in groups that are very well studied, like the cat family, apparently there's still a diversity that is hidden," said study co-author Jonas Lescroart of the University of Antwerp.