Wild Tiger Cat From Bolivia: A very small wild cat from Bolivia has now been officially recognised as a new species. Scientists have named it Leopardus tilcayo, also known as the tilcayo tiger cat. The discovery is important because it’s the first new living cat species to be formally described in more than 100 years. The study was published in Current Biology in September 2026.
The cat lives in the Yungas forests of Bolivia. This is a wet and mountainous forest area on the eastern side of the Andes. The animal is only around 46 cm long and weighs about 1.4 kg. So, it’s even smaller than an average house cat.
Its body has light-brown fur with dark and uneven rosette-like markings. It also has a slim tail and other features that make it different from some related tiger cats. But its looks alone weren’t enough for scientists to confirm it as a separate species.
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DNA Helped Scientists Find The Difference
The story of this cat started years before its official description. In 2016, a local man found a kitten near a forest and took it home because he thought it was a domestic cat. After keeping it for around a year, he realised the animal was wild and took it to the Senda Verde wildlife sanctuary.
Researcher Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz later noticed that the cat didn’t match the tiger cat descriptions she had seen. This led scientists to study its DNA.
The research team examined genetic material from 38 Leopardus cats from different parts of South America. The samples also included eight museum specimens. The results showed that tiger cats once grouped together actually include five genetically different species.
The Bolivian cat was found to have its own evolutionary line. Scientists estimate that it split from other tiger cats around 1.4 million years ago. Tiger cats are considered “cryptic species” because closely related cats can look almost the same even when their DNA is different.
What Scientists Know About The Tilcayo
There’s still very little information about the new species. Current evidence suggests it may be more active at night. Scat samples have also contained remains of small rodents, giving scientists an early clue about its diet.
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One known animal is a 10-year-old male that now lives at Senda Verde after previously being kept by a local family. Researchers currently have information from only two live individuals along with a small number of camera-trap records.
The study also identified a new tiger-cat subspecies in Peru’s Yungas called Leopardus tigrinus antisuyo. The findings could matter for conservation because each newly separated species may need its own population and threat assessment.
