A spotted little cat in a Bolivian sanctuary turned out to be a species science had never named

Biologist Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz was volunteering at a Bolivian wildlife sanctuary when a colleague pointed out a cat that just looked… off. Smaller than a house cat, with leopard-like spots, the 10-year-old male had been living there for years. Genome comparisons across more than 30 cats revealed it belonged to an unrecognized species, Leopardus tilcayo — named for the local word for the animal. Published in Current Biology, it's the first new living wild cat species formally described in over a century.