The tilcayo is the new wild cat on the block

[AUDIO LOGO] FLORA LICHTMAN: Hey, it’s Flora. And you’re listening to Science Friday. Big news in tiny cats– an itty bitty three-pound spotted cat from Bolivia called the tilcayo is the first new wild cat species described in more than 100 years. Tilcayo pics have been catnip on social media. I mean, it’s adorable. It’s grumpy-looking in a characteristic cat way.

But there’s so much more to tilcayo’s tale, including the fascinating and kind of hard-to-believe story behind its discovery. So today, we’re talking to the biologist who worked for nearly 10 years to describe this flashy feline. Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz leads the Bolivian Felid Research and Conservation Program, which studies wild cats like jaguars, ocelots, and margays. Paola, welcome to Science Friday.

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: Hi, Flora. Thank you for having me here on Science Friday. I’m so happy.

FLORA LICHTMAN: I am so happy to have you. I feel like tilcayo’s a celebrity. Would you agree?

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: I totally agree. That cat is everywhere. You open TikTok, you open Facebook or Instagram, and the cat is there, which is amazing, isn’t it? We have a great celebrity. We are not focusing on people, talking about politics or showing makeup. Our cat is showing how beautiful it is.

FLORA LICHTMAN: [LAUGHS] Yes, more cat celebrities, 100% agree. Let’s talk about this cat’s backstory. How was it first found?

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: OK, so there was a guy in the Yungas forest. So it’s not in the city or something like that. Imagine a rural place. He was walking, and he found a kitten in the road. And it was dirty, and it was raining. So he took it and take it at home, because it was, you know, like a kitten.

And then the cat start growing a little bit, but not that much. He told us that he lived with the cat one year, but the cat started chasing the chickens, having weird behavior. It was not like a domestic cat. And that’s how he realized that it was like a wildcat. And he took it to the Rescue Center, to the Refuge, which is Santa Verde.

FLORA LICHTMAN: He knew something was different. When did you and this cat meet?

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: OK, so I met when I went to Santa Verde. I did some volunteer there. And it was the first time I saw this cat. It was in his enclosure. And the cat start going down from his house pretty slow. And it was so slender and so tiny. I cannot describe. I was so amazed, because I work with cats. And I have the jaguars in my mind, and I have ocelots, which are big. And then you have this tiny thing.

And I remember, I asked the people there, is this like a kitten or a juvenile? They told me, no, it’s an adult. And I couldn’t believe it because it was really, really small and slender. And then he went down and started walking really fast because I wanted to take pictures. And I took nearly 100 pictures of the cat. But all the pictures are really awful, part of the ear, the tail, something like that. But it was amazing.

FLORA LICHTMAN: So you first met this cat in 2017. Why did it take so long to describe it as a new species? What was the work involved there?

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: OK, so I– that was what we about leopardus tigrinus, which was the species. So for me and for all the scientists here, that was a leopardus tigrinus. So there was no doubt.

FLORA LICHTMAN: That’s the genus that it’s a part of?

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: Yes, it was the other species. All of these tiger cats were called leopardus tigrinus before our paper.

FLORA LICHTMAN: That’s the species this cat had been grouped into, leopardus tigrinus, also known as a tiger cat.

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: Yes. So this cat, it was a leopardus tigrinus for science. And for local, they have this name, tilcayo, to differentiate this cat from the Geoffrey’s cat, from the ocelot, from the jaguarundi, like from the other cats in the region. So when I realized it was different, it was because I was writing a booklet.

So I checked a book of cats, and I saw a description of the cat, and there was a picture of a Brazilian one. And I saw the picture. And then I saw the cat that I saw. And I was like, of course, the picture is– the book is so wrong. What happened with these people? And also, the description was like the smallest spots, it didn’t match. And that’s how I started doing the genetics.

So the first time I did the genetics on these cats, the results were a mess. I was so young and I was so dumb. So I did a genetic of this. I first tried with saliva. I took saliva from the cat. I went to the lab. I did the genetic analysis. And then I realized the results didn’t match.

I was like, oh, my god. I’m so an expert in this. I shouldn’t do this anymore. And I didn’t share that result with no one. The next time I did it–

FLORA LICHTMAN: Because you thought it was wrong, right? Because it’s like this–

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: Of course.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Yeah.

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: There is no way you are going to say, I discovered something new. It’s like, of course, the first thing you think is that you are wrong. So then I try again with some hair. And the result was the same. So I just leave it. I didn’t continue because I was wrong.

Then I got more training on genetics, and I went back. And that’s why it took so much time, because maybe sometimes we don’t believe that we discovered something new. It’s like, of course, the first thing as young people, we think is that we are doing something wrong.

FLORA LICHTMAN: I’ve heard this from so many scientists. That’s how you’re trained to think, that if you get a big, giant result, you have to be very skeptical of it.

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: Yes, totally. And also, we were like, when we had the results, we would say like, OK, we need to be sure. OK, it’s a new species. But let’s be sure that it’s not described before. So we need to go to the museums to ask if there were other skins. Or even we tried to learn about the naturalists, like all scientists that came to Bolivia, why they didn’t do a description of this cat.

So it’s something that, scientists, we are always about maybe. It depends of the species. We are not like, of course. Of course it’s new. You have to believe me. Science is– it’s about being skeptical.

FLORA LICHTMAN: What’s been the reaction in Bolivia?

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: Oh, my god. Everything is here is crazy. Everyone is so happy of the cat. It’s like everyone start talking about the cat. I use public transport. So I was riding in one of these buses, and I heard people talking about the cat. And I was like, it is amazing. People is talking about the cat.

Also, politics wants to do like a tilcayo law to protect the cat, which is the good part of this. There is a lot of– also, there are initiatives of street art of the cat. There are people that are doing walls. It’s in Spanish, but I’m going to try to translate, like it’s “Long life to the cat and not to the president,” like to our actual president.

So it’s so beautiful. And also, in what are happening to Bolivia, because we basically are in some problems. Let’s say we have problems with dollars. We have problems. We don’t have petrol. And we have a lot of corruption. But we have a new cat, and everyone is so excited. Yes, we have a cat. And it’s a Bolivian cat. So it’s kind of like, I think this cat bring happiness to my country, which is really, really amazing for me, at least.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Yeah, and it sounds like maybe new conservation approaches, too.

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: Yes. I think now people want to study the cat. And that would really be useful for the cat, and also some other conservation actions. But not for the cat only. Let me talk about the Yungas forest. No one care about this forest. And they are already like deforestation. There are old mining. So there are many things of this.

And as a conservationist, too, if we start talking about these umbrella species, we think about jaguars, birds, like big mammals that usually are the umbrella species, are flag species, where people like it, and then they start doing conservation. And now I think this tiny animal, it’s a flag species, because there are several organizations that want to do conservation of the Yungas forest because the cat live there. And everyone loves the cat, so we need to protect the cat, which is kind of grateful, because we are also protecting other species.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Do you feel like small cats get the attention they deserve? I feel like we hear a lot about big wildcats, at least here in the US.

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: Yeah, I think don’t. They don’t. I work in conservation of cats. And most of the grants I got are for protecting jaguars. So I always do like, OK, I’m going to do a workshop about protecting jaguars, and also the cats. So let’s do the family of cats, because it’s so hard to get funding to do conservation of a small cat.

FLORA LICHTMAN: I’ve read that they’re secretive. The small cats are secretive. Is that true?

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: Yeah. So it’s something unfair, because if you’re working with giraffes, you’re going to see them. If you’re working with elephants, you’re going to see elephants. But if you’re working with the small cats, you’re going to see its scat, nothing else. You can put a camera trap, and maybe you’re going to see an ear, you’re going to see a tail. It’s not that easy to spot.

And it’s so hard to see them in the wild. You can spend your life working with cats, and maybe you never are going to see a small cat. So it’s something really unfair for us that are cat lovers and want to do cats, because there is few opportunities to saw them. So yeah, that’s the ungrateful part of working with small cats.

FLORA LICHTMAN: We talked to so many scientists on this show, and such a big part of their job is scrounging for funding, trying to make a case for their work and why it’s important. Do you feel like you’re at a turning point?

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: Yeah. So I’m going to tell something funny. I don’t– so to pay the bills, I don’t do cats. I work with crops. And I do quinoa, and I do kañiwa and genetics of those to pay the bills. And I do just cat because I love them. And I like, it’s what I would like to do. And in this life, you have to be happy. And you have to do the things that make you happy.

So I want to believe that I’m in this turning point, and maybe I can get some grants and maybe have an NGO to have some funds to do conservation of cats. But it didn’t happen yet. The cat just was discovered two weeks ago. And I didn’t had a call of any millionaire say, like, “You know? I’m to give you this.” Call me, millionaires, if you are interested in funding my job. I can give you my phone. But I didn’t have that call yet. But I wish I have it, and I can just dedicate my life to do cats and not crops.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Millionaire cat freaks, if you’re listening, you know where to go. Paola, thank you for sharing your story with us. I appreciate it.

PAOLA NOGALES-ASCARRUNZ: Thank you so much, Flora. And thank you for sharing this amazing news of our new cat in Bolivia, the tilcayo, from Bolivia to the world.

FLORA LICHTMAN: The tilcayo, from Bolivia to the world. I love it. Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz is a National Geographic Explorer and biologist leading the Bolivian Field Research and Conservation Program.

[THEME MUSIC]

Before we go, let me just put this bug in your head. October is here, which means it is time to plan your Halloween costume. And I wanted to let you know that Science Friday’s Nightmare on Nerd Street is rising from the grave. That is our annual Halloween costume contest. So get out that sketch pad, fire up that hot glue gun, because we will be holding a contest for your nerdiest, most nightmarish costume. Details coming soon, but just wanted to give you a severed heads up.

This episode was produced by Rasha Aridi. Thank you for listening. I’m Flora Lichtman.

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