Researchers have identified a new species of cat at a wildlife sanctuary in Bolivia. This small, spotted feline had been living undetected in the area for years. The discovery highlights the importance of wildlife conservation efforts and the potential for finding unknown species in familiar environments.
The discovery, reported Thursday in the journal Current Biology, marks the first time scientists have named and described a new living wild cat species in more than a century. A local family had left it there after finding it in the forest and struggling to keep it as a pet. Its light brown coat is patterned with dark, leopardlike spots. the researchers named this one Leopardus tilcayo, preserving the moniker used by communities in the tropical cloud forests of the Andes Mountains in Bolivia where the animal lives While some species are named after scientists or explorers. “This isn’t an animal that nobody had ever seen before. Wong had no role in the new research.
What struck her was its size, she said – smaller than an average house cat, the male, now about 10 years old, measures 18 inches (46 centimeters) from its head to the base of its tail and weighs just 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms).
Bolivian biologist Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a National Geographic explorer and one of the study’s lead authors, said a colleague who thought the cat looked unusual invited her to examine it at the sanctuary in the country’s Yungas region, where she volunteered, a couple hours’ drive from the administrative capital of La Paz. Local communities knew it existed, but until now science had not recognized it as a separate species,” said Wai-Ming Wong, an expert with the global wild cat conservation group Panthera, in an email. “Even in groups that are very well studied, like the cat family, apparently there’s still a diversity that is hidden,” said evolutionary biologist and study co-author Jonas Lescroart with the University of Antwerp.
Because they look so much alike, the findings helped unravel a longstanding mystery about South America’s tiger cats, which scientists once classified as a single species.
The researchers’ DNA analysis pointed to at least five distinct species – four previously named, plus the newly described tilcayo.
