Scientists thought it was just a ‘weird cat.’ It turned out to be a new species

The species, named Leopardus tilcayo, was described in a new study published in the journal Current Biology, National Geographic reported. Unlike some recent discoveries involving previously known subspecies being reclassified, researchers say this animal represents a species entirely new to science.

The story began in 2016, when a local man found the animal as a kitten on a road near a forest in Bolivia. Believing it was a domestic cat, he took it home. About a year later, after realizing the animal was clearly wild, he brought it to a wildlife sanctuary.

Staff there described it to Bolivian biologist Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz simply as a “weird cat.”

The animal was unusually small, with a short face, rounded ears and distinctive leopard-like spots. Nogales-Ascarrunz initially believed it belonged to Leopardus tigrinus, a species of small spotted wild cat found in Latin America.

But in 2019, she noticed that the cat’s markings differed from those of animals in neighboring Brazil. Years of subsequent genetic research eventually established that it occupied its own distinct branch of the cat family tree.

Researchers proposed the name Leopardus tilcayo, after the name local people use for the animal. Its origins are something of a mystery: residents told researchers they simply inherited the word from previous generations, and it has no known specific meaning in either Spanish or Quechua.

So far, scientists know that L. tilcayo lives in Bolivia’s Yungas forest region on the eastern slopes of the Andes. Almost everything else - including what it eats, how it reproduces and how many exist in the wild - remains unknown.

Genetic analysis suggests the species diverged from related tiger cats around 1.4 million years ago. The discovery also changes scientists’ understanding of the Leopardus family tree and could have implications for conservation, as populations previously treated as a single widespread species may actually consist of several smaller species requiring separate protection.

“Sometimes we think that most of it is known, that there's not a whole lot to discover, but in fact, it's the other way around,” Nogales-Ascarrunz told National Geographic.