“New cat alert! A call from a wildlife sanctuary about a 'weird cat' has led to the first new cat species discovered in over 100 years. Smaller than an average housecat and covered in leopard-like spots, the cat species, proposed name Leopardus tilcayo, lives in Bolivia's Yungas forest ecoregion, and very little is known about its…”
Plain restatementA biologist's investigation of an unusual cat held at a Bolivian wildlife sanctuary resulted in the formal scientific description of a small spotted wild cat from Bolivia's Yungas cloud forest, named Leopardus tilcayo, described as the first new living cat species formally named in more than a century. Little is currently known about its ecology.
This post is accurate. A study published in the journal Current Biology on 17 September 2026 formally describes Leopardus tilcayo, a small spotted wild cat from Bolivia's Yungas cloud forest, and the researchers say it is the first living cat species to be newly named and described in more than 100 years, with the previous benchmark being a pampas cat described in 1923. The investigation really did begin with a 2016 call from the Senda Verde wildlife sanctuary in Bolivia about an unusual cat, an animal that had been picked up as a kitten on a forest road and mistaken for a housecat. Genetic analysis indicates the lineage split from other tiger cats around 1.4 million years ago, which the authors say is a species-level gap in cats. The animal is about 18 inches long and weighs roughly 3 pounds, smaller than an average domestic cat. One piece of context the short caption leaves out is that the cat was not unknown to people: local communities have called it tilcayo for generations, and the scientists chose that name deliberately to honor that knowledge. What remains unsettled is whether the wider taxonomic community and the IUCN will formally adopt the new species classification, and almost nothing is yet known about the cat's population size, range or behavior in the wild.
[drifted from the evidence:] New cat alert! A [drifted from the evidence:] call from a wildlife sanctuary [drifted from the evidence:] about a [drifted from the evidence:] 'weird cat' [drifted from the evidence:] has led to the first new cat species [drifted from the evidence:] discovered in [drifted from the evidence:] over 100 years. Smaller than [drifted from the evidence:] an average housecat and covered in leopard-like spots, the cat species, proposed name Leopardus tilcayo, lives in Bolivia's Yungas forest ecoregion, and very little is known about its [drifted from the evidence:] day-to-day life in the wild. Its discovery is redrawing the branches of the cat family tree, and researchers hope the methods used to identify it could be used to find even more new cat species around the world.
A [added by the neutral restatement:] biologist's investigation of an unusual cat held at a [added by the neutral restatement:] Bolivian wildlife sanctuary [added by the neutral restatement:] resulted in the formal scientific description of a [added by the neutral restatement:] small spotted wild cat [added by the neutral restatement:] from Bolivia's Yungas cloud forest, named Leopardus tilcayo, described as the first new [added by the neutral restatement:] living cat species [added by the neutral restatement:] formally named in [added by the neutral restatement:] more than [added by the neutral restatement:] a century. Little is [added by the neutral restatement:] currently known about its [added by the neutral restatement:] ecology.
Red-tinted words in the claim drifted from the evidence. Green-tinted words are what a neutral restatement needs.
The trace / claim to source
- A phone call from a Bolivian wildlife sanctuary describing "a weird cat" did initiate the investigation, in 2016, and the phrase appears in National Geographic's own reporting of the researcher's account.
- The cat is real, is housed at the Senda Verde Animal Refuge in the Yungas, and is the type specimen for the new species.
- The species was formally described in a peer-reviewed paper in Current Biology on 17 September 2026, with the name Leopardus tilcayo sp. nov.
- It lives in Bolivia's Yungas cloud forest ecoregion.
- It is smaller than an average domestic cat, roughly 18 inches and 3 pounds, with irregular leopard-like rosettes.
- The "first new living cat species formally named and described in over 100 years" framing comes from the paper itself and the authors, with 1923 as the reference benchmark.
- The study does restructure tiger cat taxonomy, supporting five distinct species plus a newly named Peruvian subspecies, L. tigrinus antisuyo.
- Very little is known about its diet, activity, range or population size, as the authors state directly.
- The study's use of museum specimen genomics is explicitly presented by the authors as a method with wider application.
- Minor framing only, not a material distortion. "Discovered" implies the animal was unknown to anyone, when in fact it was long familiar to local people. The paper's own naming choice reflects this: the researchers propose the cat be known as Leopardus tilcayo in honor of the word local people know it by, and Nogales-Ascarrunz said the team chose the name local communities use as a way of honoring their ancestral knowledge and connection to the animal . National Geographic's own full article makes this context clear; the short caption does not.
- The caption's "call from a wildlife sanctuary" is one of two slightly different published accounts of how the researcher first encountered the animal. NBC's version emphasizes her seeing the cat in person at the center where she volunteers: she volunteers at a wildlife rehabilitation center near La Paz called the Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary and said she saw this cat, that it was really small, and that she thought it was a kitten . These are compatible but not identical narratives, and the difference is immaterial to the scientific claim.
- No exaggeration, fabrication, causal overreach, species extrapolation or visual manipulation was identified.
- Whether the wider taxonomic community and the IUCN Cat Classification Task Force will formally adopt L. tilcayo as a valid species. The name is validly erected in a peer-reviewed publication, but broad taxonomic authority acceptance is a separate, later process. The IUCN review is explicitly described as forthcoming.
- Population size, range, full diet and behavior are unknown, as the authors themselves state.
- The genetic confirmation rests on a small number of Bolivian individuals, with the Senda Verde male as the reference specimen. This is normal practice for describing a rare cryptic species, but it means the species description rests on limited sampling.
- The exact "over 100 years" boundary depends on which prior description counts as the last genuinely new cat species. The authors use 1923 (L. fasciatus). Reasonable taxonomists could pick a different benchmark, which is why coverage consistently attributes this framing to the researchers.
- The claim that these methods "could be used to find even more new cat species" is an author aspiration, not a finding.
The underlying peer-reviewed paper exists and says substantially what the post says. The study generated whole-genome sequencing data for six museum specimens from the Guianas, constituting the first genetic data of the type species L. tigrinus s.s., plus four fresh samples from the central Andes, complemented by new genomes of L. guttulus, L. emiliae and L. pardinoides. Phylogenomic analysis and divergence time estimates supported four previously proposed species-level clades and the description of one new species, the tilcayo, L. tilcayo sp. nov. The paper explicitly states it describes a new species of tiger cat from the Bolivian Yungas ecoregion, Leopardus tilcayo sp. nov. Nogales-Ascarrunz, Aliaga-Rossel, Lescroart & Eizirik, 2026. On the "first in over 100 years" element: the species was described for the first time in the journal Current Biology, and researchers say it is the first time in a century they have identified a species of wild cat previously unknown to science . The lead author stated that the tilcayo is the first living cat species to be discovered and newly named in over a century. The conventional benchmark cited is the Uruguayan pampas cat, Leopardus fasciatus, described in 1923, and this framing appears in the paper's highlights as well as in National Geographic, Reuters, New Scientist and Live Science coverage. On the sanctuary origin story: In 2016, Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, a biologist and National Geographic Explorer working in Bolivia, received a call from a local wildlife sanctuary that had just been given what they described as "a weird cat." It came from a local man who found it as a kitten on a road near a forest. The man took the animal home, believing it to be a domestic breed, but after about a year of living with the clearly wild animal, he realized it would be better off at a sanctuary. The animal is the only known individual of the species living in protective captivity, and it arrived at the sanctuary around 2017 after being turned over by a local family that had kept it in their home. On size and appearance: The 10-year-old male tiger cat is approximately 18 inches from head to end of body and weighs only 3 pounds, making him smaller than the average domestic cat. Its fur is light brown with irregularly shaped rosettes across its body, according to co-author Nogales-Ascarrunz. On how little is known: Little is yet known about the cat's biology and lifestyle; remains of small rodents in scat samples suggest they may form part of its diet, while camera-trap evidence indicates it could be more active at night. Population size is unclear, with the lead Bolivian researcher saying they really do not know how many cats are still in the wild and that more studies are needed.
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