A diminutive wild cat from Bolivia\u2019s Yungas cloud forest has been formally named a new living species \u2014 the first time scientists have done that for a cat in more than a century \u2014 Reuters and The Hindu reported, citing a study published Thursday in Current Biology.<\/p>\n
Called tilcayo by local communities and given the scientific name Leopardus tilcayo, the animal is part of the South American tiger-cat group. It measures about 18 inches (46 cm) long and weighs around 3 pounds (1.4 kg), smaller than a typical house cat, with light-brown fur and irregular rosettes. National Geographic Explorer Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz and colleagues used genetic data from 38 cats across several countries, including museum specimens, and found tiger cats are five genetically distinct species \u2014 not one. Genetic analysis suggests the tilcayo lineage split from other tiger cats about 1.4 million years ago. The team also described a new Peruvian subspecies, Leopardus tigrinus antisuyo.<\/p>\n
Little is known about the cat\u2019s lifestyle; rodent remains in scat and camera traps hint at a nocturnal diet. One live individual is a 10-year-old male at Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary after living with a local family. IUCN currently lists tiger cats as two vulnerable species; researchers say an upcoming review of the five lineages separately could find tilcayo endangered on its own as Yungas forests face deforestation, fire, agriculture, and mining.<\/p>\n
Sources:<\/strong> Reuters<\/a>; The Hindu (Reuters)<\/a>; Al Jazeera<\/a>; Current Biology<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Meet Leopardus tilcayo, a 3-pound cloud-forest tiger cat hiding in Bolivia\u2019s Yungas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/bb-tilcayo-cat-0918.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions\/261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}