New wild cat species is identified for first time in 100 years, researchers say
For the first time in a century, researchers say they’ve identified a new species of wild cat previously unknown to science.
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Leopardus tilcayo — or the Tilcayo tiger cat — is slender and spotted, with rounded ears. It is smaller than a typical house cat and lives in the Bolivian Yungas, the cloud forest where the Andes mountains meet the Amazon basin. The species was described for the first time in the journal Current Biology on Thursday.
It’s rare to find a new, relatively large mammal — unsurprisingly, most new animal species discovered are small in size, said Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, who co-authored the study and leads a wild cat conservation program called the Programa de Investigación de Félidos Bolivia (Bolivian Felid Research and Conservation Program).
“This time, it’s a cat. That’s really novel. And it hasn’t happened in 100 years,” she said. “No one else had named it. No one else had described it.”
The size of the Leopardus tilcayo population is not clear yet.
“We really don’t know how many cats are still in the wild,” said Nogales-Ascarrunz, whose work as a conservationist is funded by National Geographic. “We need science, we need more studies to answer this question, which is actually critical for its conservation.”
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Tiger cats — small, wild cats native to South and Central America in the Leopardus genus — face stiff conservation challenges as development and agriculture expand.
The new study says there are five tiger cat species in South America.
“All of them are in habitats that are vanishing fast,” said Tadeu de Oliveira, another coauthor of the study and an ecologist at the State University of Maranhão in Brazil.
Leopardus tilcayo might have continued to escape notice if not for Nogales-Ascarrunz’s sharp eyes. She volunteers at a wildlife rehabilitation center near La Paz called the Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary.
“I saw this cat, it was really, really small, and I couldn’t believe how small it was,” Nogales-Ascarrunz said. “I thought it was a kitten.”
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