New tiger cat species identified in Bolivia, first in over a century

Leopardus tilcayo is the first new living cat species named and described in more than a century.

A tiny wild cat that lives in Bolivia’s lush cloud forests has been identified as a previously unknown species, marking the first time in more than a century that a new living feline species has been formally named and described.

Called “tilcayo” by local communities, the cat is part of a group called tiger cats, which are found across much of South America.

It was discovered in the Yungas forest, a mountainous region where forests are often covered by clouds and surrounded by high humidity, according to the researchers.

Given the scientific name Leopardus tilcayo, the cat measures 46cm (18 inches) long and weighs about 1.4kg (3 pounds), making it smaller than an average domestic cat.

“Its fur is light brown … with irregularly shaped rosettes across its body,” according to Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a National Geographic Explorer and one of the authors of the study describing the newly identified species published on Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

Little is known about the cat’s biology and lifestyle. Remains of small rodents in scat samples suggest they may form part of its diet, while camera-trap evidence indicates it could be more active at night, Nogales-Ascarrunz said.

Tiger cats are so-called cryptic species, meaning they cannot easily be distinguished merely by appearance, evolutionary biologist and study co-lead author Jonas Lescroart of the University of Antwerp in Belgium said.

Observing the Bolivian cat drew interest because “its characteristics did not match the descriptions, most of them based on Brazilian cats”, Nogales-Ascarrunz said. “This made us wonder, what tiger cat do we actually have in Bolivia?”

The team analysed DNA from 38 cats sampled across several South American countries, including eight museum specimens. The study found that tiger cats are in fact five genetically distinct species.

“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,” Lescroart said.

Genetic analysis suggested that the tilcayo lineage separated from other tiger cats about 1.4 million years ago.

The research team also described a new tiger cat subspecies in Peru’s Yungas, naming it Leopardus tigrinus antisuyo, after Antisuyu, the region of the old Inca Empire that included the area it inhabits.