A three-pound cat became the first new feline in a century

A small spotted cat in Bolivia's Yungas cloud forest has been confirmed as a species science never documented, the first new living feline to be formally named in more than a century. A study in Current Biology names it Leopardus tilcayo, borrowing the word local communities had used all along, which treated the animal as its own thing rather than a Bolivian stand-in for something Brazilian. The DNA agreed with them. Researchers analyzed 38 cats across South America, including eight museum specimens, and found that tiger cats are five distinct lineages, not two. The tilcayo split from its relatives about 1.4 million years ago. "We never expected this Bolivian tiger cat to be a separate species," said Jonas Lescroart, evolutionary biologist at the University of Antwerp and co-lead author. The cat weighs about 3 pounds, lighter than most house cats, and is largely nocturnal. Only two live individuals have been examined. One is a 10-year-old male living at the Senda Verde sanctuary after years as a household pet.