Tiny Bolivian Wild Cat Named a New Species
A small spotted wild cat from Bolivia's misty cloud forests now has a name of its own. Researchers have described Leopardus tilcayo as a new species, the first new living cat species formally named in more than a century, according to a Reuters report published by Al Jazeera on September 18, 2026.
The cat lives in the Yungas, a mountain region where the forests often sit under cloud and heavy humidity. Local communities already called it "tilcayo," and its scientific name keeps that local word. It is smaller than an average house cat, at about 46 centimeters (18 inches) long and roughly 1.4 kilograms (3 pounds).
The find started with a puzzle. National Geographic Explorer Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz noticed that Bolivian tiger cats did not match descriptions based mostly on cats from Brazil. She and co-lead author Jonas Lescroart, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, then studied DNA from 38 cats across several South American countries, including eight museum specimens. Their study in the journal Current Biology shows that tiger cats are really five genetically distinct species. The tilcayo line appears to have split from its relatives about 1.4 million years ago.
Much about the new cat is still unknown. Rodent remains in scat samples hint at its diet, and camera traps suggest it may be more active at night. Because tiger cats look so alike, naming each species correctly gives conservation planners a solid starting point. The same team also named a new tiger cat subspecies in Peru, Leopardus tigrinus antisuyo.
Even after a century without a new cat on the list, the cloud forest still had a neighbor to introduce.
