TLDR
Scientists formally named Leopardus tilcayo in Current Biology on 17 September 2026, the first new living wild cat species described in more than a century. A Bolivian family had unknowingly kept the animal as a pet for about a year after finding it as a kitten near the forest in 2015.
First new wild cat in a century found in a Bolivian living room
Scientists formally named Leopardus tilcayo as a new species in the journal Current Biology on 17 September 2026, the first novel living wild cat species described in more than a century.[1] The discovery originated in a family home near Bolivia's Yungas cloud forest.
A family found the animal as a kitten in 2015, mistook it for a stray domestic cat, and kept it as a household pet for about a year.[3] The arrangement ended when the cat began chasing neighbours' chickens, prompting the family to surrender it to Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary in 2016.
What makes tilcayo distinct
The tilcayo tiger cat measures 425 to 505 mm head-to-body, weighs between 1.5 and 2.0 kg, and carries a light brown dorsum marked with large irregular rosettes.[2] Its pelage is shorter and its tail less bushy than those of related tiger cats, differences that helped researchers argue the case for a separate species.
Paola Nogales Ascarrunz, lead biologist at the Bolivian Felids Research Program, said the pet episode illustrated a broader problem. "Unfortunately, that's the problem with the illegal wildlife trade. When you want to pet a wild animal, then you think the power of love is going to change the behaviour of this animal. But a wild animal, it doesn't matter if you give him the best food, it's not going to behave," she said.[3]
Why confirming a new cat species takes decades
Researcher Jonas Lescroart of the University of Antwerp said the animal had long evaded formal science. "It had never been given a scientific name, and it had never been formally described in a scientific way that was published," he said.[3]
Genomic analyses show the Bolivian Yungas lineage split from other tiger cats roughly 1.4 million years ago, with approximately 1.4 million diagnostic nuclear transversion site differences separating it from its closest relatives.[2] Wild cats pose a particular challenge: their cryptic physical similarities mean lineages presumed to belong to the same species can hide in museum drawers and field records for generations before genomics catches them.
The holotype, an adult male designated CBF-11990, was live-captured in September 2021 near Arapata village in Nor Yungas, La Paz, at 1,570 metres above sea level, and is now housed at Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary.[1] A female paratype was captured nearby in September 2018, sampled and released.
Population modelling adds urgency to the finding. Effective population size declined by roughly 63 per cent from the Pleistocene, falling from an estimated 22,000 individuals to about 8,000 during the Holocene, mirroring declines recorded in other tiger cat lineages.[2]
Conservation status and what legal protection comes next
Confirmed records place Leopardus tilcayo solely within Nor Yungas, a restricted range inside Bolivia's Yungas cloud forest, and researchers predict the IUCN will list it as Endangered once the reassessment is complete.[2] The Yungas cloud forest spans Bolivia's eastern Andes slopes at elevations from roughly 400 to 3,800 metres, characterised by high humidity and persistent cloud cover.
Splitting what was previously treated as a single broadly distributed tiger cat into five narrower species-level ranges can trigger uplisting under IUCN criteria, as each lineage's restricted territory becomes the unit of assessment. Researchers have submitted the genomic data to the IUCN and flagged the species for separate evaluation under CITES trade appendices.[2]
The IUCN reassessment and the CITES evaluation were both pending as of the paper's publication date, 17 September 2026.
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Caleb Reed covers breaking news and sport. He works to the rhythm of a story as it unfolds, and he is happiest when the facts arrive faster than anyone can spin them.
