La PazIt took ten years to name this cat.
Leopardus tilcayo is the first new cat species described in a century.
Genomic comparisons across 38 cats showed the lineage in Bolivia split from relatives roughly 1.4 million years ago.
Conservation status now depends on IUCN reviewing each of five tiger cat lineages separately.
How each outlet framed it
drawn from 150+ reports worldwide
- Aol
- reconstructs discovery narrative through biologist's field encounter in Bolivia and subsequent DNA analysis verification
- BBC
- foregrounds conservation attention gap for tiger cats relative to larger predators, cites DNA's role in distinguishing visually similar species
- MoneyControl
- Yahoo News
Sources: Aol, BBC, MoneyControl, Yahoo News