smaller than a house cat and spotted like a leopard
🥰Very cute! Apparently the locals already knew about the existence of this cat:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilcayo_tiger_catOf course they did. “Civilized” people like to think they discovered stuff that many people have known about all along. For instance, the Western Hemisphere.
wiki says:
The tilcayo was already known to local communities; however, its visual appearance is extremely similar to that of other tiger cat species and the tilcayo had not been understood to be genetically distinct until this study revealed so.
Publications on Bolivian fauna predating 2026 associate the term tilcayo with Leopardus tigrinus.[6
What was thought to be single species turned out to be five species on closer investigation, and locals only ever see the one proper to the area. Having different names for the same animal in different places isn’t unusual
yeah at first they thought it’s just a weird oncilla, but now you can get genetic testing done quickly and cheaply and now it turns out that it’s something closer to 6 species and not one even if they look similar
Me: NEW KITTY JUST DROPPED?!?! Also me:PSS PSS PSS PSSS PSS
kitty!!!
Great, now that these pictures are out I can assure you they will be hunted, sold off as pets and soon go extinct. Maybe some of them will be “saved” in a zoo.
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted, because this is sadly correct. Black market wildlife trading has driven some species to the brink of extinction. We also already have idiots breeding wild cat hybrids, like Bengals and Savannahs, so there’s a well established market already.
Unfortunately doomed even before being officially recorded as their native habitat is being destroyed. Probably for farming or ranching. Just one more line item in the Holocene extinction list.
Why would you do that? Leave those poor cats alone!
