Sara Moore
Science Editor
Most people are familiar with the domestic cat (Felis catus). From homes and barns to the steps of Kenarden –– where campus cat Sunflower can often be spotted –– domestic cats are everywhere. What people might not know is just how vast the cat family is, with house cats being one of many members. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recognizes 40 wild cat species in the family Felidae. Within this group, there are two subfamilies: Pantherinae, which consists of seven big cats, and Felinae, which consists of 33 small cats. However, this number will soon need to be updated, as scientists have discovered a new species of cat in Bolivia.
Leopardus tilcayo, or tilcayo, is the first new cat species to be discovered since the Pampas cat in 1923. The genus Leopardus is native to the Americas and contains species such as the ocelot, the Pampas cat and Geoffrey’s cat. They are known for their spotted fur and small ears and are sometimes referred to as “tiger cats.” This genus is considered the oldest branch of the genetic lineage of small cats native to the Americas.
Tigrino, the name of the tilcayo who sparked the species discovery, was once a house cat due to his small size. His family kept him for a year before realizing he was a wild animal and bringing him to the Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary in Bolivia in 2017. Tigrino was thought to be an oncilla (Leopardus tigrinis), but at only three pounds, he was much smaller than other adult oncillas, who can weigh over seven pounds. In 2019, Bolivian biologist Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz was working on a guidebook of Bolivia’s wild cats and noticed subtle differences between Tigrino and other oncillas, saying, “it didn’t really match.” Driven by this, she began to study Tigrino’s DNA compared to other members of the Leopardus genus.
Two other scientists who were studying tiger cats, Eduardo Eizirik and Jonas Lescroart, joined forces with Nogales-Ascarrunz to solve the mystery of Tigrino’s DNA in 2021. Their study, which was published on September 17 in the journal “Current Biology,” described Leopardus tilcayo as a unique evolutionary branch that separated from other tiger cats approximately 1.4 million years ago. Tilcayo was named in honor of the name traditionally used by communities in Bolivia’s Yungas forest.
The study also revealed there are at least five genetically different species of tiger cats, confirming the previous descriptions of them. These discoveries have led the scientists to reach out to IUCN, which categorizes species’ conservation status in its Red List. They hope that their findings will help the IUCN improve their classifications of these species.
“We have already shared our findings with IUCN and in their upcoming reassessment of tiger cats, they will treat each unit separately, which will result in more accurate assignment of conservation categories,” said Lescroart.
Currently, scientists do not know how many tilcayos still exist in the wild or how far their habitats extend. Tiger cats have a species complex, meaning they are closely related species with similar appearances, which makes them difficult to study in the wild. Other tiger cats are threatened due to deforestation, fragmentation and illegal pet trading, so it is possible tilcayos face these same challenges. Scientists hope that the discovery of tilcayo will bring increased attention to tiger cats and help improve their conservation.
“Who knows what else is undiscovered in those Bolivian jungles?” Eizirik said. “The tilcayo may actually save a lot of things.”
