How ‘new’ is the tilcayo, the first cat species to be discovered in a 100 years?

Scientists have described a species of tiger cat that was previously unknown to science. From Bolivia’s Yungas cloud forests, it is the first discovery of a living novel cat species in more than 100 years.

The tilcayo (Leopardus tilcayo) 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 paper that describes it, said the name honors traditional knowledge in the region.

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.

“I have the honor of naming a cat, and that’s a really big thing,” Nogales-Ascarrunz, who is also a researcher at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz, Bolivia, told Mongabay by phone.

For decades, researchers lumped small spotted cats across South America under a single species name: Leopardus tigrinus or tiger cat. However, evidence had been mounting for years that the group might contain several species.

In the article published on September 17, researchers unwound the species’ genetic web and confirmed at least four distinct species.

Many newly recognised small cat species result from this kind of taxonomic reshuffling: Researchers find a subspecies is actually a distinct species; or two different species that...

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