A small spotted cat from Bolivia’s cloud forests has been confirmed as a new species, the first wild cat to be added to the list since 1923, Euronews reports.
The animal has been named Leopardus tilcayo, after “tilcayo”, the local name for it. It is about 45 centimetres long, with a leopard-like coat and rounded ears. People in the Yungas region near La Paz had long seen it, and some assumed it was a domestic cat. A team led by biologist and National Geographic explorer Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz began investigating in 2021 and sequenced the full genomes of two specimens, which showed it was genetically distinct. The results were published in Current Biology.
The researchers say the tilcayo may already be vulnerable to extinction. Naming it gives conservationists something concrete to protect, and the same methods could help uncover other cat species still hiding in plain sight.
Source: Euronews