New wild cat species discovered – with only one known living member

Yeah, the quirk being that the known population is just this one in the sanctuary. They haven't identified where specifically he came from or where there might be others, so for now he's a one-of-one.

No, the new cat resembles a tiger cat but is distinctly different even from appearance not just DNA. It just hasn’t been seen or tested before now.

> It'll take more effort tagging and identifying other tiger cats to see if they also belong to this particular one?

This effort is actually already ongoing. This splashy headline that seems to have crushed it on publicity front is actually just a small piece of the research currently being done on oncillas (aka tiger cats). The word on the grapevine for the past year or so is that the oncillas are going to get divided up into between five and twelve new species.

There are other four species of Leopardus in Bolivia if I'm not wrong, and some had several subspecies. Many tiny, highly arboreal and nocturnal so no easy at all to catch or study. This animal was raised as pet since cub so is much easier to take samples. It could be the one animal in their species, ever, as an hybrid abandoned by its mother. Many oaks and willows do that trick routinely.

That said in 2020 there was an article proposing to split Leopardus colocolo in other 3 to 5. This article worked on the proposal, validating four new species more with L. tilcayo that was closer to L. tigrinus. National Geographic (as in other cases) embellished the history a little. Five new species of cats were disclosed, and four were described previously inside a species complex.

This was my first thought. Sadly, I'm sure people are actively out looking for these just for that reason.

Would be a wasted effort, as there are other species that are not endangered (And with just a male known breeding them would be a defy).

Bengal cats, an hybrid of an asian species and domestic cats, are commercially breed filling that niche. They are expensive and forbidden by law in some countries. If you, as me, desire badly to grab one and scratch its belly, don't check in internet Prionailurus rubiginosus.

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Claiming that this is the first new cat discovered in 100 years is strange, as we have the proposal to split Leopardus colocolo into other three to five species in 2020. Until 2020 there were seven extant species of Leopardus with many subspecies. Some of those are being slowly raised to species. Maybe this is an hybrid?

All Leopardus except the ocelote are endemic of Latin America and many are endemic of Los Andes. USA has the ocelote and some day could have the smaller Margay also.

not necessarily, which is interesting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigon

> The small feline, about the size of a domestic moggy, went under the radar because it was confused with other wild cats that share similar spots and stripes.

> But DNA studies show the cat is actually in a class of its own, highlighting how much remains unknown about some of the world's most elusive mammals.

> so presumably ability to cross-breed isn't part of the "new species" calculation?

Considering people have interbred jaguars and leopards, and then interbred the female cubs with lions to get a lijagulep, I'm not sure cross-breeding is the gold standard of speciation that gets sold as such in school.

The greatest threat to some of these cat species (the Scottish Wildcat being a prime example) is loss of genetic differentiation through interbreeding with domestic cats.