New cat species discovered in Bolivian cloud forest

“For the first time in a century,” researchers have discovered a “new species of wild cat previously unknown to science. Leopardus tilcayo — or the tilcayo tiger cat — is slender and spotted, with rounded ears. It is smaller than a typical house cat and lives in the Bolivian Yungas, the cloud forest where the Andes mountains meet the Amazon basin,” reports NBC News. It is about the size of a kitten.

Today, this species was described for the first time in Current Biology, a journal.

It is rare to find a new mammal that isn’t really small.  “Most newly discovered animal species are small in size,” smaller than a cat, notes Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, who leads a wild cat conservation program. “This time, it’s a cat. That’s really novel. And it hasn’t happened in 100 years,” she said.

Critically-endangered Amur leopard cubs were born last week in a zoo in Finland.

An endangered flat-headed cat was spotted in January in Thailand, where it was believed to be locally extinct.

Bobcats recently returned to New Jersey after being absent from the state for 50 years.

The snow leopard population has doubled in Kazakhstan, the world’s ninth largest country.