September 20, 2026 Back Home

Meet the First New Wild Cat Species in 100 Years!

It’s not every day a new cat is discovered.

For the first time in over a century, scientists have officially identified a brand-new species of wild cat—essentially a mini-tiger!

In fact, as reported by NBC News, it’s so tiny that when a local man found one in the forest, he thought it was just a domestic kitten. He took it home and tried feeding it noodles, rice, and eggs! When he realized his spicy little houseguest was actually wild, he brought it to the Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary.

That’s where biologist Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz stepped in.

She noticed that the cat’s leopard-like rosettes and tail didn’t match the other known wild cats in the area.

After doing some genetic testing, she and her team discovered that this little cat had actually diverged from other tiger cat lineages about 1.4 million years ago.

While the scientific community is just formally describing it now, it appears local Indigenous communities in Bolivia have known about the “tilcayo” for generations.

The discovery of the tilcayo is an incredible reminder of how much of our natural world is still waiting to be explored—and how desperately it needs protecting.

As Nogales-Ascarrunz beautifully put it: “It’s a new reason to protect the world.”

“We really don’t know how many cats are still in the wild,” said Nogales-Ascarrunz, whose work as a conservationist is funded by National Geographic. “We need science, we need more studies to answer this question, which is actually critical for its conservation.”