⏩︎VOTE⏪︎ ᶜʸⁿⁱᶜⁱˢᵐ⁼ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗᵃⁿᶜᵉ (Ben Royce) (@benroyce@mastodon.social)
mastodon.social
Attached: 2 images New #cat species! 😻 (New to #science, not the indigenous peoples of #Bolivia) The tilcayo tiger cat, Leopardus tilcayo Smaller than a house cat. Lives in cloud forests #PaolaNogalesAscarrunz discovered it volunteering at a #wildlife rehabilitation center “I saw this cat. It was really, really small, and I couldn’t believe how small it was" So she did genetic testing She says the #tilcayo is in danger (habitat loss) "It’s a new reason to protect the world" https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/new-wild-cat-species-identified-rcna598113 #cats

    • Skua@kbin.earth
      7·
      3 days ago

      Actually no, but for an exciting reason: this is a species only just newly identified this month!

      The one with the incredibly high hunting success rate is the black-footed cat, which is from southern Africa. The one in the pic is a tilcayo, from Bolivia. It looks similar to another species of wildcat in the same area, but one that had brought into a wildlife sanctuary (by a guy who found and cared for it as a kitten and didn’t initially realise it wasn’t a domestic cat) and a scientist realised that it was not actually the same thing