Scientists identify thousands of new species every year. They’re mostly insects discovered through advances in genetic testing, but there are some more notable ones. Earlier this year, scientists discovered a new bird species in Japan and a new blue octopus species in the Galapagos. Well, there’s some fun news for my fellow cat lovers to rejoice over. For the first time in over 100 years, there’s a new addition to the feline family. The Leopardus tilcayo, a new species of tiger cat, was recently identified in Bolivia’s Yungas cloud forest. It’s three pounds, around 18 inches long, and super adorable. Here’s more from ABC News:

A new “tiger cat” species has been discovered in Bolivia, according to researchers in Current Biology, the first living feline species identified by scientists in over a century.

The small wild cat, officially known as Leopardus tilcayo (locally known as the tilcayo cat) is native to Bolivia’s Yungas cloud forest, weighing no more than 3 pounds and approximately 18 inches long, making it smaller than the typical house cat.

For a year, a “kitten” with leopard-like spots was kept as a pet by a local family, but was later brought to the Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary after they recognized it to be a wild animal.

“The first time I saw it, it was really, really small and skinny and I couldn’t believe like how small it was,” Paola Nogales Ascarrunz, a National Geographic Explorer and the co-author of the study, told ABC News.

Compared to other “tiger cats”, the tilcayo cat has a small scrunched-up face, small and round ears, with long whiskers. Nogales Ascarrunz found that this did not match any reference photos of known “tiger cats.”

The elusive “tiger cats” were previously thought to be one large species, and were frequently misclassified as other similar-looking cats such as the oncillas or margays.

[From ABC News]

Since not much is known about the tilcayo cat, a research team is installing cameras in the forest to learn more about its behaviors and distribution. The cat person and science nerd in me is looking forward to learning more about it. The tilcayo cat’s discovery story is pretty wild, though. A man found it as a kitten on the side of a road in 2016 and took it in, thinking it was a domestic breed. He gave it to the wildlife sanctuary a year later after realizing it was a wild animal. Even then, it still took years before anyone figured out this cat wasn’t like the others. Imagine living with a cat for a year only to find out it was an undiscovered species. It makes me wonder how many other instances like this have gone undetected.

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