alt Hacker NewsThe first new cat species discovered in 100 years
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> And they said, ‘I don’t know! My grandpa called it tilcayo, so I call it tilcayo.
I'm curious if the locals knew it was distinct from other similar species, e.g. Oncilla/L. tigrinus, or if tilcayo is the locals' name for a broader set of 2+ visually similar species?
Be careful, they are evolving, and everyone was worried that AI was taking over.
Positively tiny. Really makes you wonder what else is still out there.
Also an amusing disjoint between it being called "tiger" cat but having leopard spots. At least the latin name is more on point.
A bunch of Pokémon playing cat ladies out there goes «Gotta catch’em all!»
I don't understand how they're different species from others. By what definition of species are they different species, as opposed to (say) subspecies?
Very good news that a new species was discovered that's not a microbe or a fungus!
Desperately trying to find a video with the original meowing sound...
Wow, I expected it to be a DNA based split or something like that, but a genuinely new to science mammal is pretty cool!
On a related paw, Leopardus guigna (güiña) in Anticura goes by the cute name of kodkod:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodkod#/media/File:Leopardus_g...
This looks like AI generated
It always surprises me when people discover new animal species. These little kittens look very cute.
> when the researchers compared complete genomes from 38 individuals across the Leopardus genus, the results showed that not only was L. tilcayo different from the other tiger cat species, but it had diverged from them around 1.4 million years ago—an evolutionary distance comparable to that between modern lions and extinct cave lions.
So around 2.8 million divergence-years. Going by wikipedia, the divergence between lions and cave lions is much less:
> Genetic analysis of ancient DNA has revealed that while closely related, it was a distinct species genetically isolated from the modern lion (Panthera leo), with the genetic divergence between the two species estimated at 500,000 to 1 million years ago.
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera_spelaea )
Theoretically, that's anywhere from 18% to 71% of the divergence. (The same page also notes that fossils of this species can be about 700,000 years old, which is philosophically interesting in combination with a divergence date of 500,000 years ago.) These are "comparable" in the sense that any two numbers can be compared, but it's not something you would usually say when one of the numbers is 50% larger than the other one. Even less so when it's 400% larger.
That's a good looking kitty!
Beautiful. Can't believe how mini and colorful.
It will turn out to be a domestic cat that crossbred with some wild cat species. :D
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I for one welcome our new feline Overlords.
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Babe, wake up! New cat just dropped!
It's Leopardus tilcayo aka 'tilcayo tiger cat' and it's very cute. Wikipedia doesn't have a page dedicated to it yet.
Bonus pics: https://www.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/SEI_...
https://media.zenfs.com/en/live_science_953/73a4cafd69e9e863...
https://media.zenfs.com/en/live_science_953/1fea354ba7a8db69...
https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/get/maximage/20260917_17896627...