A large number of new species of Mammals have been proposed from the Neotropical Region in recent years, including new species of Capuchin, Marmoset, Deer, Coati, Peccary, River Dolphin, Tapir, Sloth, Olingo, Bat, Rodent, and Anteater. Not all of these new species are universally accepted, with doubts cast on whether some proposed new species have been shown to be genuinely genetically and ecologically isolated from their closest relatives, although the majority have gained wide acceptance.
There are currently eleven species of Felid known from Central and South America, eight of which are placed in the Genus Leopardus, including the Ocelot, Leopardus pardalis, the Margay, Leopardus wiedii, the Andean Cat, Leopardus jacobita, the Pampas or Colocolo Cat, Leopardus colocola, the Kodkod, Leopardus guigna, Geoffroy's Cat, Leopardus geoffroyi, the Oncilla or Tigrina, Leopardus tigrinus, and the recently differentiated Southern Tigrina, Leopardus guttulus.
The taxonomy of Tigrinas has been problematic since the species was first described by Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber in 1775, as Felis tigrina. Schreber's description was based upon a specimen from Cayenne in French Guiana, of which he provided a plate with the label 'La Margay', thereby introducing confusion as to the differentiation between Margays and Tigrinas. The same species was named again in 1867 as Felis pardinoides by John Edward Gray (who had created the genus Leopardus in 1842), who give India as a type locality, later changing it to Bogata, Colombia (such errors were not uncommon for nineteenth century zoologists working with museum specimens, which were often purchased from unreliable vendors). A variety of other Felis species were described from South America in the ensuing years, as well as several species assigned to the (now defunct) genus Margay, with it not being recognised that all these Cats were members of a single genus until the twenty first century.
The Tigrina (as either Felis tigrina or Leopardus tigrinus) has long been seen as a species including a considerable amount of diversity, with numerous proposed sub-species, four of which have persisted into recent usage, although one of these has recently been separated out as a separate species, the Southern Tigrina, Leopardus guttulus, on the basis of genetic data. Tigrinas can be divided into three distinct morphotypes. The first of these is found throughout Central America and the Andean region, and while morphologically consistent, has been shown to contain several different genetic lineages, which should probably be regarded as different sub-species or even species. The second morphotype is found in northeastern and central Brazil, and is both morphologically and genetically distinct, and has been proposed to be a separate species: Snethlage's Tigrina, Leopardus emiliae. The third morphotype is found in Brazil, Paraguay, and northeastern Argentina, and is the population separated out as the Southern Tigrina, Leopardus guttulus.
In a paper published in the journal Genes on 14 June 2023, Manuel Ruiz-García and Myreya Pinedo-Castro of the Laboratorio de Genética de Poblaciones Molecular-Biología Evolutiva at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, and Joseph Shostell of the Math, Science and Technology Department at the University of Minnesota Crookston, describe a new species of Tigrina from Nariño Department in southern Colombia.
The new species is described from a single preserved skin from collection of the Instituto von Humboldt, which was collected in 1989 on the Galeras Volcano in Nariño Department, southern Colombia. Importantly, this specimen was preserved by drying it in the sun rather than by tanning; the later is a more reliable method of preservation, producing supple skins which can reliably be kept for a long time without decaying, but tends to destroy DNA.
Analysis of DNA taken from this specimen showed that it was comfortably different to any described species of Leopardus, forming a sister taxa to a group that included the Central and American and Andean Tigrinas, the Kodkod, and Geoffroy's Cat.
Maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference trees of 44 Felid specimens, including 18 Tigrina-like morphotype specimens analysed for their entire mitogenomes. Six different clades include Tigrina-like specimens: Leopardus emiliae with mtDNA of Leopardus colocola braccatus; the proposed new species; Leopardus guttulus;
the Central American and trans-Andean Tigrina; the Andean Tigrina; and the Andean Tigrina with
mtDNA closely related to that of Margays and Ocelots. The sequences of other species of Leopardus
were included. Sequences of the Domestic Cat, Felis catus, and Jaguarundi, Herpailurus yagouaroundi, two species were also included which
also live in the same geographical area where the Nariño Cat was sampled. The first number at the
nodes indicates bootstrap support (%) (ML tree); the second number at the nodes indicates posterior
probability (BI tree). Ruiz-García et al. (2023).The preserved skin is described as the holotype, and only known specimen of a new species, Leopardus narinensis, where 'narinensis' means 'from Nariño', referred to as the Nariño Cat. It was probably a female in life, and belongs to a general Tigrina morphotype. It has rosettes in oblique chains, yet these rosettes have fuzzy edges. The ground colouration is tawny-orange, but the dorsal crest is of a darker orange-brownish colour. The tail is relatively short and is completely ringed, bearing seven complete rings and a black tip. However, this skin also has unique, diagnostic features. Its ground coloration is more reddish than in other Tigrinas, and its head and its dorsal crest are much darker. Its coat is denser and woollier. The head is rounder and wider, and the face is flatter. The body is short and relatively more robust than in other Tigrinas.
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