百余年来首次！猫科发现新物种，比家猫小

For the first time in a century, researchers say they've identified a new species of wild cat previously unknown to science.

Leopardus tilcayo — or the tilcayo tiger cat — is slender and spotted, with rounded ears. It is smaller than a typical house cat and lives in the Bolivian Yungas, the cloud forest where the Andes mountains meet the Amazon basin. The species was described for the first time in the journal Current Biology on Thursday.

研究人员介绍，在新物种的粪便里发现过小型啮齿动物残骸，相机记录则提示它可能主要在夜间活动。除此之外，其分布范围、现存数量、繁殖方式、灭绝风险等都尚未可知。

相关研究成果于9月17日发表在《当代生物学》（Current Biology）上，同时也公布了该物种的发现经过。

The cat had been brought in by a man living in a community in the forest near La Paz who had mistaken the cat for a domestic kitten, according to details recorded by the Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary. He had fed the animal noodles, rice and eggs, only to realize it was wild and that he could not take care of it. So he brought it to the sanctuary.

基因组分析结果显示，这只猫属于一个独立的进化支系，大约在140万年前就与其他虎猫分离，这一分化时间与现代狮与已灭绝洞狮之间的差距相同。因此，研究团队将其命名为蒂尔卡约虎猫，保留了当地居民使用的“蒂尔卡约”名称。当地人解释说，这个名字是祖辈传下来的，具体含义不详。

Nogales-Ascarrunz did genetic testing, using tissue from the tiger cat and a second animal that also turned up at Senda Verde. The results from those specimens revealed that the two cats were unique and from the same species, which had diverged from other tiger cat lineages about 1.4 million years ago. That's enough genetic distance to consider it a new species.

目前，庇护所中有一只约10岁的雄性个体，是该物种唯一已知处于保护性圈养的活体，另一只活体也曾受到检查，野外仅有少量相机抓拍记录。研究人员强调，其繁殖、具体食性、种群数量和野外生态还处于未知状态。