A wild cat smaller than your pet has just been named for the first time in a century
What happened
A small wild cat living in the cloud forests of Bolivia has been confirmed as a species nobody had formally described before. This is rarer than it sounds. It is the first time in more than a century that a new living cat species has been named and described by science. The cat is known locally as the tilcayo. Researchers have kept that name, giving it the scientific name Leopardus tilcayo. It is tiny. It measures about 46cm (18in) long and weighs about 1.4kg (3lb). That makes it smaller than the average domestic cat sitting on someone's sofa right now. It lives in Bolivia's Yungas forest, a mountainous region where the trees are often wrapped in cloud and the air is thick with humidity. Its fur is light brown with irregularly shaped rosettes across its body. The study was published on Thursday 18 September 2026 in the journal Current Biology.
Why this matters
There is a nice story here about a charming small cat. There is also a serious point underneath it. Cats are what scientists call a flagship group. They are well studied, well funded and well loved. If there are still new cat species turning up, the number of undescribed species in less glamorous groups must be enormous. Eduardo Eizirik, an evolutionary biologist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil and senior author of the study, made exactly this point. "Showing the general public that even in a flagship group such as cats there are still new species to be discovered may transmit an important message," he said. "There are many undiscovered species out there in the world, and they are at risk of disappearing before we even discover them." That last phrase is the heart of it. You cannot protect what you have not identified. And this is not a theoretical worry for the tilcayo. The Yungas is one of the region's most threatened ecosystems.
What the evidence actually says
The reason this cat went unnoticed for so long is that you cannot tell it apart just by looking. Tiger cats, the wider group this animal belongs to, are what biologists call cryptic species. That means different species look so similar that appearance alone will not separate them. Jonas Lescroart, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Antwerp in Belgium and study co-lead author, explained this. For a long time, tiger cats were treated as a single species. Genetic studies decades ago hinted there might be more than one. So the team went to the DNA. They analysed genetic material from 38 cats sampled across several South American countries, including eight museum specimens. The result was striking: tiger cats are in fact five genetically distinct species, not one or two. The tilcayo lineage appears to have separated from other tiger cats about 1.4 million years ago. Lescroart explained the logic simply: "The more differences in their DNA, the longer the time that we estimate those lineages to have been physically separated." A gap that size is generally considered a species-level divide in cats. What first raised suspicions was old-fashioned observation. Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a National Geographic explorer and one of the study's authors, said the Bolivian cat drew interest because "its characteristics did not match the descriptions, most of them based on Brazilian cats". She said: "This made us wonder: what tiger cat do we actually have in Bolivia?" The honesty of the researchers is worth noting. They are not claiming to understand this animal. Lescroart said: "Our information at this moment is limited to the two live individuals that we examined, and a small number of camera-trap records." What little is known: remains of small rodents in scat samples suggest rodents may form part of its diet, and camera-trap evidence indicates it could be more active at night. One of the two live cats is a 10-year-old male now living at the Senda Verde wildlife sanctuary in Bolivia, after being kept by a local family in their home. The team also described a new tiger cat subspecies in Peru's Yungas region, naming it Leopardus tigrinus antisuyo after Antisuyu, the region of the old Inca empire that included the area. The conservation consequences are real. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list currently treats tiger cats as two "vulnerable" species with declining populations. The researchers have shared their findings, and the IUCN's upcoming review will assess the five lineages separately. That matters arithmetically. If you split one population into five, each one is smaller and more fragile than the group looked before. Lescroart said species such as the tilcayo could be considered endangered when assessed on their own. Meanwhile the Yungas mountain forests face growing pressure from deforestation, agricultural expansion, human-caused fires and mining, Nogales-Ascarrunz said. She listed the urgent priorities: restoring forest patches damaged by fires, protecting remaining native forest, and maintaining connections between habitats.
What to know
A small wild cat from Bolivia's Yungas cloud forest has been confirmed as a new species, Leopardus tilcayo, keeping the name local communities already use. It is the first living cat species formally described in over a century. It is about 46cm long and weighs around 1.4kg, smaller than an average domestic cat. DNA from 38 cats across South America, including eight museum specimens, showed that tiger cats are five distinct species rather than one. The tilcayo split from its relatives around 1.4 million years ago. Very little is known about how it lives. Researchers have examined only two live individuals plus a few camera-trap records. The IUCN will now reassess the five lineages separately, which could mean the tilcayo is classed as endangered. Its forest home is under pressure from deforestation, farming, fires and mining. The study was published in Current Biology on 18 September 2026. Sources: The Guardian, "New cat species identified for first time in more than a century in Bolivia", 17 September 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/17/new-cat-species-identified-bolivia ; BBC News, "New wild cat species discovered - with only one known living member", 17 September 2026, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6x2zgv9rr4ro ; Current Biology, https://www.cell.com/current-biology/home This article is for general information only. It covers wildlife research and contains no health advice; for any health question, speak to a doctor, pharmacist or other qualified healthcare professional.
Related articles
England needs 120% of normal rainfall over seven months to leave drought behind
The government, the Environment Agency and water company bosses met on 16 September 2026 to discuss how England gets out of drought. The headline number from t…
Microplastics were in every one of 227 farm fields tested across Europe
A five-year research project has found microplastics in the soil of every single agricultural field it tested. The EU-funded project tested 227 farm fields acr…