A spotted cat from the forests of Bolivia has been confirmed as a new species. The small feline, about the size of a domestic moggy, went under the radar because it was confused with other wild cats that share similar spots and stripes. But DNA studies show the cat is actually in a class of its own, highlighting how much remains unknown about some of the world’s most elusive mammals. Scientists hope the discovery will draw attention to the conservation of tiger cats, a group of small wild cats found in South and Central America that receives far less public attention than their larger cousins like lions, leopards and tigers.
Tiger cats are small, spotted wild cats found across Central and South America, from Costa Rica to Bolivia and Argentina. They look remarkably similar and even experts can struggle to tell them apart. “It’s an amazing result that we have a new species for the world, which is the Leopardus tilcayo,” said Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz of Universidad Mayor de San Andres in La Paz, Bolivia. “It’s amazing that there are still new species waiting to be discovered: we don’t have to go to a volcano, an island, or deep into the sea.” Only one confirmed member of the species is known – a cat living in a rescue sanctuary in Bolivia – but scientists believe others exist.
It was this 10-year-old cat, nicknamed ‘Tigrino’, that set scientists on the path to discovery. Bolivian scientist Dr Nogales-Ascarrunz was volunteering at the sanctuary when she noticed the cat looked unusual. It had been found in the forest by a local resident, who initially thought it was a domestic kitten. As it grew older, however, it became clear that it did not behave like a house cat.
Dr Nogales-Ascarrunz had heard of other sightings of small wild cats in the dense forests of the country’s Yungas region, but these had not been investigated by scientists. To solve the mystery, she joined forces with other researchers from around the world to investigate the family history of tiger cats, using DNA from living animals and museum specimens. “There’s so few records or pictures, no individual in a museum, so it was hiding because nobody was looking,” said Eduardo Eizirik, a conservation geneticist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. The study, published in Current Biology, external, uncovered further surprises, suggesting there are five rather than three tiger cat species, including the newly described Tilcaya cat (Leopardus tilcayo) of Bolivia.
However, identifying the species is only the first step. Co-researcher Dr Caroline Sartor, of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the University of Oxford, said the discovery was important for conservation because it is impossible to protect a species if we don’t know what it is or where it lives. “These are animals similar in size to a domestic cat, so you might think we would know them all by now, but this discovery shows how much biodiversity is still to be uncovered in some of the less-studied regions of the world,” she said. Tiger cat species are considered vulnerable to extinction because of deforestation, habitat loss and illegal hunting, although the new species is missing from previous assessments.
The discovery could also have wider implications for the world’s cat family. Both wild and domestic cats belong to the biological family Felidae, which includes every living cat species from tiny house pets to massive tigers. There are officially 41 species recognised but the new discovery, and the finding that there may be several species of tiger cat, brings the number to 44 or more. Andrew Kitchener, an expert in mammals at National Museums, Scotland, who was not involved with the research, says the small spotted South American cats known as tiger cats have been a “taxonomic nightmare”.
“These cats are confusing because they look so similar and there are few specimens in museums, so even now we are still learning how to tell them apart as genetics reveal more species,” he said.
