New Cat Species Discovered For The First Time In 100 Years

Scientists published a paper Thursday in the journal Current Biology announcing the formal discovery of Leopardus tilcayo, the tilcayo tiger cat, the first new wild cat species to be identified in more than a century.

It is smaller than a house cat, covered in large irregular rosettes like a leopard, has rounded ears and long whiskers and lives in the Bolivian Yungas, the cloud forest where the Andes meet the Amazon.

The discovery began with a phone call. In 2016, Bolivian biologist and National Geographic Explorer Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz received a call from the Senda Verde wildlife sanctuary about a "weird cat."

A local man had found it as a kitten on a roadside, taken it home thinking it was a domestic breed and eventually surrendered it to the sanctuary a year later when it became obvious it was a wild animal.

The cat, a male now known as Tigrino, approximately 10 years old, is the only known individual of the species living in protective captivity.

Nogales-Ascarrunz noticed in 2019 that the cat's rosettes were far larger than the guide book reference photos of similar species from Brazil.

DNA analysis eventually confirmed what she suspected, this was not a known tiger cat. Genetic testing found that the tilcayo's evolutionary lineage split from its closest relatives approximately 1.4 million years ago.

"Describing a new cat species after more than 100 years shows how much we still have to learn about the biodiversity around us," Nogales-Ascarrunz said. "But it also reminds us that we need to protect the Yungas forests, which are home to so many species — including some we are only beginning to understand."