First New Wild Cat Species in 100 Years Named in Bolivia

Scientists identified Leopardus tilcayo, a three-pound spotted cat from Bolivia's Yungas cloud forest, the first new living feline species in over a century.

Fascinated by its scrunched-up face, round ears, long whiskers and leopard-like rosettes, she photographed the animal and later realized it did not match reference images of known tiger cats. A study published Thursday in Current Biology formally names it Leopardus tilcayo, the first new living cat species described in more than a century, since the pampas cat in 1923.

The tilcayo is smaller than an average house cat, measuring about 18 inches long and weighing roughly 3 pounds, with light brown fur marked by irregularly shaped rosettes, a longer slender tail and more muted coloring than its close relatives, the oncillas. It lives in Bolivia's Yungas, the cloud forest ecoregion where the Andes meet the Amazon basin. According to The Tico Times, rodent remains in scat samples hint at its diet and camera-trap evidence suggests the cats are more active at night, though much about their daily lives remains a mystery.

The analysis suggests the tilcayo lineage diverged from other tiger cats about 1.4 million years ago — an evolutionary distance, National Geographic reports, comparable to that between modern lions and extinct cave lions. The study also supports treating Leopardus emiliae and Leopardus pardinoides as separate species and identifies a new subspecies, Leopardus tigrinus antisuyo, in Peru.

The species' name comes directly from the word local communities have long used for the animal. "We chose to name the species 'Tilcayo' — the name local communities use to describe the cat. It's our way of honoring their ancestral knowledge and connection to this animal," Nogales-Ascarrunz told KOCO. The name does not appear to hold a particular meaning in Spanish or Quechua, National Geographic reports — local people simply said their grandfathers called it tilcayo. The only known tilcayo in captivity, a 10-year-old male, still lives at the Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary where the discovery began.

The discovery carries real conservation weight. When several distinct species are lumped together, smaller, more threatened populations can slip through the cracks; the two currently recognized tiger cat species are listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, and the newly distinguished cats could be at greater risk. "Once three species become five species, each population is reduced. Therefore conservation efforts must increase, perhaps urgently, depending on estimated population sizes," James Sanderson of the Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation told National Geographic. The cats face habitat loss from deforestation and mining, and researchers do not yet know how many tilcayo exist in the wild.

Researchers have shared their findings with the IUCN, whose upcoming reassessment of tiger cats will treat each unit separately, resulting in more accurate conservation categories, Lescroart said. Teams are installing camera traps in the Yungas to search for more tilcayo, and scientists say the genomic methods used here could uncover further hidden species worldwide — Sanderson notes the study hints the margay, long considered one species from Mexico to Argentina, may actually be four. "Even in the cats, there are things out there that are undescribed," Nogales-Ascarrunz said. "So let's go out and find them and protect them."