New wild cat species Leopardus tilcayo is identified for first time in 100 years and it’s smaller than a house cat. See pics

For the first time in about 100 years, researchers have identified a new species of wild cat previously unknown to science. Leopardus tilcayo is a tiger cat identified as a new species through genetic testing, according to CBC News. Leopardus tilcayo, also known as tilcayo tiger cat from Bolivia, is slender and spotted, with rounded ears. The newly discovered is smaller than a typical house cat and lives in the Bolivian Yungas and was described for the first time in the journal Current Biology on Thursday.

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In 2016, Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a biologist and National Geographic Explorer working in Bolivia, received a call from a local wildlife sanctuary that had just been given what they described as “a weird cat.” It came from a local man who found it as a kitten on a road near a forest. The man took the animal home, believing it to be a domestic breed. But after about a year of living with the clearly wild animal, he realized it would be better off at a sanctuary.

As the lead scientist and founder of the Bolivian Felids Research Program (Programa de Investigación de Félidos Bolivia), Nogales-Ascarrunz was intrigued. The animal had a small, scrunched-up face, short and round ears, and long whiskers. It was, indeed, too small to be a housecat, and, most notably, it was covered in leopard-like spots. So she went to visit the creature at the Senda Verde wildlife sanctuary on the subtropical flank of the Bolivian Andes. “I took a hundred pictures of it,” remembers Nogales-Ascarrunz. “I was so fascinated.”

“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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Where was Tilcayo found?

Tilcayo was found in Bolivia's lush Yungas forest, a mountainous region where forests are often covered by clouds and surrounded by high humidity, according to researchers. It measures about 18 inches (46 cm) long and weighs around 3 pounds (1.4 kg), making it smaller than the average domestic cat. Researchers used genetic data to confirm that the cat is a new species, and gave it the scientific name Leopardus tilcayo, retaining its local name.

"Its ​fur is light brown ... with irregularly shaped rosettes across its body," said 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. Not much 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, who co-authored the study and leads a wild cat conservation program called Programa de Investigación de Félidos Bolivia (Bolivian Felid Research and Conservation Program), said. Referring to the new species, Lescroart said, "Our information at this moment is limited to the two live individuals that we examined, and a small number of camera-trap records."

“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.”

“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.”

How was Tilcayo classified as a new species?

Nogales-Ascarrunz conducted genetic testing using tissue samples from the tiger cat and another animal that had also arrived at Senda Verde. The results showed that the two cats were genetically distinct from other tiger cat lineages, having evolved separately around 1.4 million years ago. The genetic difference was significant enough for researchers to classify the animal as a new species.

However, Nogales-Ascarrunz noted that the discovery was not entirely new to local communities in Bolivia. Indigenous communities have known about the cat for generations.

“They call it tilcayo,” Nogales-Ascarrunz said. When researchers asked whether the word had a specific meaning in Quechua, Aymara or other Indigenous languages, locals reportedly responded that their grandparents had simply taught them that the animal was called tilcayo.

Nogales-Ascarrunz said this knowledge had been passed down through generations and should be preserved rather than replaced with a new scientific name.

The newly identified species could also face threats to its survival, making its discovery particularly important for conservation efforts. “It’s a new reason to protect the world,” Nogales-Ascarrunz said.

(With Reuters inputs)