Meet the tiny wild cat that’s new to science

Fernando Faciole/National Geographic/Reuters

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

The cat, called Tilcayo by local communities, is part of a group called tiger cats found across much ​of South America. It 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.

ernando Faciole/National Geographic/Reuters

“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.

Little is yet 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, said evolutionary biologist and study co-lead author Jonas Lescroart of the University of Antwerp in Belgium.

Tiger cats previously had been considered a single species, but genetic studies decades ago suggested the existence ‌of multiple species.

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.”

One of the live cats is a 10-year-old male that now lives in Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary after being kept by a local family in their home.

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 analyzed 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 more differences in their DNA, the longer the time that we estimate those lineages to have been physically separated,” Lescroart said, adding that such a gap ⁠is generally considered a species-level divide in cats.

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

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, Red List tracking the status ​of species currently treats tiger cats as two “vulnerable” species ⁠with declining populations.

The researchers have shared their findings with the IUCN, whose upcoming review will assess the five lineages separately. That could give a more accurate picture of risk, Lescroart said, and species such as the Tilcayo could potentially be considered endangered when assessed on their own.

The need for a ⁠clearer assessment ‌is particularly acute in the Yungas, one of the region’s most threatened ecosystems.

The mountain forests face growing pressure from deforestation, agricultural expansion, human-caused fires and mining, Nogales-Ascarrunz said. Restoring forest patches damaged by fires, protecting remaining native forest and maintaining connections between habitats are urgent ‌priorities, Nogales-Ascarrunz ‌added.

“Showing the general public ​that even ​in a flagship group such as cats … there are still new species to be discovered may transmit an important message,” said Eduardo Eizirik, an evolutionary biologist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil and senior author of the study.

“There are many undiscovered species out there in the world, and they are at risk of disappearing before we even discover them.”

Fernando Faciole/国家地理/路透社

生活在玻利维亚云雾森林中的一种小型野生猫科动物被确认为此前未知的物种，这标志着一个多世纪以来，首次正式命名和描述了一种新的现存猫科动物物种。

这只被当地人称为“蒂尔卡约”（Tilcayo）的猫属于虎猫科，虎猫分布于南美洲大部分地区。据研究人员称，它是在玻利维亚茂密的云加斯森林中被发现的，该地区位于山区，森林常年云雾缭绕，湿度很高。它的体长约46厘米（18英寸），体重约1.4公斤（3磅），比一般的家猫要小。

研究人员利用基因数据证实，这只猫是一个新物种，并将其学名为 Leopardus tilcayo，保留了其当地名称。

埃尔南多·法西奥莱/国家地理/路透社

“它的毛皮呈浅棕色……身上有不规则形状的玫瑰花结，”国家地理探险家、周四发表在《当代生物学》杂志上的描述新发现物种的研究报告的作者之一保拉·诺加莱斯-阿斯卡伦兹说道。

人们对这种猫的生物学特性和生活习性知之甚少。诺加莱斯-阿斯卡伦兹表示，粪便样本中发现的小型啮齿动物残骸表明它们可能是其食物的一部分，而红外相机拍摄的证据表明，它可能在夜间更加活跃。

比利时安特卫普大学的进化生物学家、该研究的共同第一作者乔纳斯·莱斯克罗特表示，虎猫是所谓的隐蔽物种，这意味着仅凭外表很难将它们区分开来。

虎猫以前被认为是单一物种，但几十年前的基因研究表明虎猫可能存在多个物种。

莱斯克罗特在谈到这个新物种时说：“目前我们的信息仅限于我们检查过的两个活体个体，以及少量相机陷阱记录。”

其中一只活着的猫是一只 10 岁的雄性猫，它之前被当地一个家庭饲养在家中，现在生活在 Senda Verde 野生动物保护区。

诺加莱斯-阿斯卡伦兹说，观察这只玻利维亚猫之所以引起我们的兴趣，是因为“它的特征与大多数描述不符，而这些描述大多是基于巴西猫的。” “这让我们不禁思考：玻利维亚究竟有什么样的虎猫？”

研究团队分析了从南美洲多个国家采集的38只猫科动物的DNA样本，其中包括8件博物馆藏品。研究发现，虎猫实际上是五个基因不同的物种。

莱斯克罗特说：“我们从未想过玻利维亚虎猫会是一个独立的物种，也从未有人提出过它是不同的动物、亚种或其他物种。”

基因分析表明，蒂尔卡约虎的谱系大约在 140 万年前与其他虎猫分离。

莱斯克罗特说：“它们的 DNA 差异越大，我们估计这些谱系在物理上分离的时间就越长。”他还补充说，这种差距通常被认为是猫科动物物种层面的分界线。

研究小组还描述了秘鲁永加斯地区的一种新虎猫亚种，将其命名为 Leopardus tigrinus antisuyo，以纪念古印加帝国的安提苏尤 (Antisuyu)，安提苏尤是古印加帝国的地区，也包括它所居住的地区。

国际自然保护联盟（IUCN）红色名录追踪物种状况，目前将虎猫列为两种“易危”物种，其种群数量正在下降。

研究人员已将研究结果提交给世界自然保护联盟（IUCN），该联盟即将进行的评估将分别对这五个谱系进行评估。莱斯克罗特表示，这或许能更准确地反映风险状况，而像蒂尔卡约蜥蜴这样的物种，如果单独评估，则有可能被列为濒危物种。

在云加斯地区，对更清晰的评估的需求尤为迫切，因为云加斯是该地区最受威胁的生态系统之一。

诺加莱斯-阿斯卡伦兹表示，山地森林正面临着来自森林砍伐、农业扩张、人为火灾和采矿的日益增长的压力。她补充说，恢复被火灾破坏的林地、保护剩余的天然林以及维护栖息地之间的联系是当务之急。

“向公众展示，即使在猫这样的旗舰群体中……仍然有新的物种有待发现，这可能会传递一个重要的信息，”巴西里约热内卢天主教大学的进化生物学家、该研究的资深作者爱德华多·艾兹里克说。

“世界上还有许多尚未被发现的物种，它们甚至有可能在我们发现它们之前就消失。”