New wild cat species discovered - with only one known living member

To solve the mystery, she joined forces with other researchers from around the world to investigate the family history of tiger cats, using DNA from living animals and museum specimens."There's so few records or pictures, no individual in a museum, so it was hiding because nobody was looking," said Eduardo Eizirik, a conservation geneticist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.The study, published in Current Biology, uncovered further surprises, suggesting there are five rather than three tiger cat species, including the newly described Tilcaya cat (Leopardus tilcayo) of Bolivia.Getty ImagesBolivia has dense forest that supports thousands of rare plant and animalsHowever, identifying the species is only the first step. Co-researcher Dr Caroline Sartor, of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the University of Oxford, said the discovery was important for conservation because it is impossible to protect a species if we don't know what it is or where it lives."These are animals similar in size to a domestic cat, so you might think we would know them all by now, but this discovery shows how much biodiversity is still to be uncovered in some of the less-studied regions of the world," she said.Tiger cat species are considered vulnerable to extinction because of deforestation, habitat loss and illegal hunting, although the new species is missing from previous assessments.