Genetic study names a new wild cat species from Bolivia’s cloud forest

Bolivia’s Yungas, a belt of steep, humid mountain forest often wrapped in cloud, is home to a small spotted cat that science had not recognised as a species of its own until a genetic study published in the journal Current Biology on 17 September 2026.

The animal has been named Leopardus tilcayo, keeping the name Tilcayo used by local communities. It is about 46 centimetres long and weighs around 1.4 kilograms, less than a typical domestic cat, with light brown fur marked by irregular rosettes. The researchers said it was the first living cat species to be formally named and described in more than 100 years, Reuters reported.

It belongs to the tiger cats, a group of small South American felines long treated as one species and more recently as two. They are what biologists call cryptic species: hard to tell apart by sight. The team, led by Jonas Lescroart of the University of Antwerp in Belgium with Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a National Geographic Explorer, and senior author Eduardo Eizirik of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, analysed DNA from 38 cats sampled in several countries, including eight museum specimens. They concluded that tiger cats comprise five genetically distinct species and that the Bolivian lineage split from the others about 1.4 million years ago. The paper also describes a new subspecies from Peru, Leopardus tigrinus antisuyo.

The evidence for the new species is genetic, and direct knowledge of the animal is thin. “Our information at this moment is limited to the two live individuals that we examined, and a small number of camera-trap records,” Lescroart told Reuters. One of the two is a 10-year-old male living at a wildlife sanctuary after being kept in a family home. Rodent remains in droppings suggest small rodents may be part of its diet, and camera-trap images indicate it could be more active at night; little else is known about how it lives.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature currently lists tiger cats as two vulnerable species. The researchers have sent it their findings, and Lescroart said the Tilcayo might qualify as endangered once assessed separately. Nogales-Ascarrunz said the Yungas forests face deforestation, expanding agriculture, fires and mining.