Scientists have identified a previously unknown species of wild cat in Bolivia’s cloud forests, marking the first time in more than a century that a new living cat species has been formally named and described.The cat, known locally as Tilcayo, lives in Bolivia’s Yungas, a mountainous cloud-forest region where the Andes meet the Amazon basin. Researchers have given it the scientific name Leopardus tilcayo and described the species in the journal Current Biology.The small, slender cat measures about 46 cm in length and weighs around 1.4 kg, making it smaller than an average domestic cat. It has light-brown fur, rounded ears and irregularly shaped rosettes across its body.“It’s fur is light brown … with irregularly shaped rosettes across its body,” said Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a National Geographic Explorer and co-author of the study, as reported by Reuters.
How scientists identified the Tilcayo
The discovery began when Nogales-Ascarrunz encountered an unusually small wild cat at the Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary near La Paz, where she volunteers.“I saw this cat, it was really, really small, and I couldn’t believe how small it was. I thought it was a kitten,” she told NBC News.
National Geographic Explorer Paola Nogales Ascarrunz, who led the research that identified Leopardus tilcayo as a new species, observes the cat at the Senda Verde animal refuge in the Yungas region, in Bolivia
The animal had been brought to the sanctuary by a local man who had initially mistaken it for a domestic kitten. He had fed it noodles, rice and eggs before realising that it was a wild animal he could not care for.Researchers initially suspected that the cat belonged to a known tiger cat species found elsewhere in South America. However, its physical characteristics did not match existing descriptions.“If you look at the spots or the tail, they really don’t match,” Nogales-Ascarrunz told NBC News.The team subsequently analysed DNA from 38 cats sampled across several South American countries, including eight museum specimens. The genetic analysis found that tiger cats actually comprise five distinct species.The Tilcayo lineage was found to have separated from other tiger cats about 1.4 million years ago, a genetic distance that researchers said represents a species-level divide in cats.“We never expected this Bolivian tiger cat to be a separate species, and no one had ever proposed it as a different animal, subspecies or otherwise,” said study co-lead author Jonas Lescroart of the University of Antwerp, according to Reuters.
A species known to local communities
While the cat was previously unknown to science, local communities in Bolivia have known about it for generations.“This cat, they call it Tilcayo,” Nogales-Ascarrunz said, according to NBC News. She said community members told researchers that the name had been passed down from their grandparents.The researchers retained the local name when giving the species its scientific name, saying they wanted to preserve that traditional knowledge.Researchers also described a new tiger cat subspecies in Peru’s Yungas, naming it Leopardus tigrinus antisuyo after Antisuyu, a region of the old Inca Empire that included its habitat.Scientists currently have limited information about Leopardus tilcayo. As per Reuters, their knowledge is based on two live individuals examined by researchers and a small number of camera-trap records.One of the live cats is a 10-year-old male that now lives at the Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary after previously being kept by a local family.Camera traps suggest the species may be more active at night, while remains of small rodents found in scat samples indicate they could form part of its diet.
Conservation concerns
The size of the wild Tilcayo population is not yet known.“We really don’t know how many cats are still in the wild,” Nogales-Ascarrunz told NBC News, stressing the need for further studies to understand the species and its conservation needs.The researchers have shared their findings with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which will assess the five tiger cat lineages separately in an upcoming review.Tiger cats are currently treated by the IUCN as two vulnerable species with declining populations. A separate assessment could provide a clearer picture of the risks facing each lineage, researchers said.The Yungas itself is facing pressure from deforestation, agricultural expansion, human-caused fires and mining, according to Nogales-Ascarrunz.The researchers said restoring forest damaged by fires, protecting remaining native forest and maintaining connections between habitats are priorities.“Showing the general public that even in a flagship group such as cats … there are still new species to be discovered may transmit an important message,” said Eduardo Eizirik, an evolutionary biologist and senior author of the study, according to Reuters.“There are many undiscovered species out there in the world, and they are at risk of disappearing before we even discover them.”