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Scientists have described a species of tiger cat that was previously unknown to science. From Bolivia\u2019s Yungas cloud forests, it is the first discovery of a living novel cat species in more than 100 years. <\/span><\/p>\n The tilcayo (Leopardus tilcayo<\/em>) takes its species name from the name locals already had for it. Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a National Geographic explorer who discovered the species and co-author of the Current Biology<\/em> paper<\/a> that describes it, said the name honors traditional knowledge in the region.<\/span><\/p>\n The tilcayo is smaller than a domestic cat at 1.4 kilograms (3 pounds). It has rounded ears, a slender body and a coat with large spots.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI have the honor of naming a cat, and that\u2019s a really big thing,\u201d Nogales-Ascarrunz, who is also a researcher at the Universidad Mayor de San Andr\u00e9s in La Paz, Bolivia, told Mongabay by phone. <\/span><\/p>\n For decades, researchers lumped small spotted cats across South America under a single species name: Leopardus tigrinus<\/em> or tiger cat. However, evidence had been mounting for years that the group might contain several species. <\/span><\/p>\n In the article published on Sept. 17, researchers unwound the species\u2019 genetic web and confirmed at least four distinct species. <\/span><\/p>\n Many newly recognized small cat species result from this kind of taxonomic reshuffling:\u00a0 Researchers find a subspecies is actually a distinct species<\/a>; or two different species that had been lumped together are separated<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n But the tilcayo was different. Researchers knew a cat occurred in the Yungas cloud forests, but it had never been formally described. <\/span><\/p>\n Research had a breakthrough when a Bolivian family brought their pet tilcayo, named Tigrino, to the Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary near La Paz around 2017. The family had rescued Tigrino as a kitten, thinking it was a domestic cat, but began to suspect it was something more wild<\/a> when the tiny feline started stalking their neighbor\u2019s chickens. <\/span><\/p>\n Testing on Tigrino, and on one hair sample from a rescued tilcayo that had been rehabilitated and returned to the wild, showed that L. tilcayo<\/em> was farther removed from other tiger cats than anyone had expected. Genetic analysis showed that the species had never been sampled before and matched no known species.<\/p>\n \u201cWe expected the tilcayo to maybe be a subspecies, or something like that, because it was different,\u201d Nogales-Ascarrunz said. \u201cThen we saw it was 1.4 million years ago that this cat separated from the others, and that was amazing because we didn\u2019t expect that much separation.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n For reference, humans diverged from neanderthals around 800,000<\/a> years ago.<\/span><\/p>\n The last living cat species to be named and described before the tilcayo was the Uruguayan pampas cat (Leopardus fasciatus<\/em>) in 1923.<\/span><\/p>\n Banner image: <\/em><\/strong>Leopardus tilcayo resides at Senda Verde Animal Refuge in Bolivia\u2019s Yungas region. Photo \u00a9 Fernando Faciole\/National Geographic.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Bolivia,](\"https:\/\/imgs.mongabay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2026\/09\/25155843\/09_NGS2026EXPL_Paola-Nogales_cr_Fernando-Faciole_0686-2.jpg\")
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