New wild cat species Leopardus tilcayo is identified for first time in 100 years and it’s smaller than a house cat. See pics

For the first time in about 100 years, researchers have identified a new species of wild cat previously unknown to science. Leopardus tilcayo is a tiger cat identified as a new species through genetic testing, according to CBC News. Leopardus tilcayo, also known as tilcayo tiger cat from Bolivia, is slender and spotted, with rounded ears. The newly discovered is smaller than a typical house cat and lives in the Bolivian Yungas and was described for the first time in the journal Current Biology on Thursday.

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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.