Leopardus species have spottedfur, with ground colors ranging from palebuff,ochre,fulvous andtawny to light gray.[5] Their smallears are rounded and white-spotted; theirrhinarium is prominent and naked above, and theirnostrils are widely separated.[6] They have 36chromosomes, whereas other felids have 38.[7]
Thegeneric nameLeopardus was proposed byJohn Edward Gray in 1842, when he described two spotted cat skins from Central America and two fromIndia in the collection of theNatural History Museum, London.[8]Several genera were proposed in the 19th and early 20th centuries for small spotted cats in the Americas, including:
Dendrailurus,Lynchailurus,Noctifelis,Oncifelis andOncoïdes byNikolai Severtzov in 1858;[9]
Margay,Pajeros,Pardalina andPardalis by Gray in 1867;[10]
Analysis of skullmorphology of thesetaxa revealed close similarities in theirbase of skulls andnasal bones, theirmasticatory muscles, and dentition.[14]Phylogenetic analysis of tissue samples of these taxa and their ability tohybridise support the notion that they are members of the same genus.[4][7]The following eight extantLeopardus species have commonly been recognized asvalid taxa since 2017:[3]
Additionally, more recent genetic analyses in 2017 and 2021 proposed the recognition of a third tigrina-like species,Leopardus emiliae.[30][31]
A 2021 analysis of 142 pampas cat museum specimen collected across South America showed significant morphological differences between them. Therefore, it was proposed to split the historically-contentious pampas catspecies complex into five species:Leopardus colocolo,Leopardus braccatus,Leopardus garleppi,Leopardus munoai, andLeopardus pajeros.[32] Later that same year, it was noted that the oldest available name for pampas cats of the Uruguayan savannah region wasLeopardus fasciatus, notL. munoai.[33]
Another study in 2023 described another new species,Leopardus narinensis, based on a single dried skin collected in 1989 on theGaleras Volcano in the Nariño Department of Colombia. They found it to be very different from all otherLeopardus species both morphologically and genetically.[34]
A different study in 2024 did a detailed analysis of both the morphology and genetics of specimens assigned toLeopardus tigrinus,Leopardus guttulus, andLeopardus emiliae. It suggestedL. t. pardinoides should be elevated to species status asLeopardus pardinoides due to significant differences in morphology, genetics, and ecology. The study also assigned the subspeciesL. t. oncilla to be a subspecies ofL. pardinoides asL. p. oncilla. Additionally, genetic analysis suggested thatLeopardus emiliae was not genetically distinct fromL. tigrinus, and thus may be invalid. The study recommended the common names savannah tiger-cat forL. tigrinus, Atlantic Forest tiger-cat forL. guttulus, and clouded tiger-cat forL. pardinoides.[35]
An expanded list ofLeopardus species would be:[36]
Leopardus braccatus, thePantanal cat or Brazilian pampas cat
Leopardus colocola, the colocolo or Central Chilean pampas cat
Leopardus emiliae, the eastern tigrina or Snethlage's tigrina
Leopardus fasciatus, Muñoa's pampas cat or Uruguayan pampas cat
Leopardus garleppi, the northern pampas cat or Garlepp's pampas cat
Leopardus geoffroyi, Geoffroy's cat
Leopardus guigna, the kodkod
Leopardus guttulus, the southern tigrina or Atlantic Forest tiger-cat
Leopardus jacobita, the Andean mountain cat
Leopardus narinensis, the Nariño cat, Galeras cat, or red tigrina[34]
Leopardus pajeros, the southern pampas cat
Leopardus pardalis, the ocelot
Leopardus pardinoides, the clouded tiger-cat
Leopardus tigrinus, the oncilla, northern tigrina, or savannah tiger-cat
Within the genus, three distinctclades were identified: one comprising the ocelot and the margay, a second the Andean mountain cat and Pampas cat, and the third the kodkod, oncilla and Geoffroy's cat.[38][39] The followingcladogram shows estimateddivergence times in million years ago (mya).
Phylogenetic relationships of livingLeopardus species as derived through analysis of
^abBerta, A. (1983). "A new species of small cat (Felidae) from the late Pliocene – early Pleistocene (Uquian) of Argentina".Journal of Mammalogy.64 (4):720–725.doi:10.2307/1380541.JSTOR1380541.
^abKitchener, A. C.; Breitenmoser-Würsten, C.; Eizirik, E.; Gentry, A.; Werdelin, L.; Wilting, A.; Yamaguchi, N.; Abramov, A. V.; Christiansen, P.; Driscoll, C.; Duckworth, J. W.; Johnson, W.; Luo, S.-J.; Meijaard, E.; O'Donoghue, P.; Sanderson, J.; Seymour, K.; Bruford, M.; Groves, C.; Hoffmann, M.; Nowell, K.; Timmons, Z.; Tobe, S. (2017)."A revised taxonomy of the Felidae: The final report of the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group"(PDF).Cat News (Special Issue 11):46–58.
^Allen J. A. (1919). "Notes on the synonymy and nomenclature of the smaller spotted cats of tropical America".Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History.41:341–419.
^Pocock, R.I. (1941). "The Examples of the Colocolo and of the Pampas Cat in the British Museum".The Annals and Magazine of Natural History.7 (39):257–274.doi:10.1080/03745481.1941.9727931.
^Linnaeus, C. (1758)."Felis pardalis".Systema naturae per regna tria naturae: secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Vol. I (Tenth ed.). Holmiae: Laurentius Salvius. p. 42.
^Paviolo, A.; Crawshaw, P.; Caso, A.; de Oliveira, T.; Lopez-Gonzalez, C.A.; Kelly, M.; De Angelo, C. & Payan, E. (2016) [errata version of 2015 assessment]."Leopardus pardalis".IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.2015 e.T11509A97212355.
^Schreber, J. C. D. (1778)."Die Maragua".Die Säugethiere in Abbildungen nach der Natur, mit Beschreibungen. Erlangen: Wolfgang Walther. pp. 396–397.
^abMolina, G. I. (1782)."La GuignaFelis guigna".Saggio sulla storia naturale del Chilli. Bologna: Stamperia di S. Tommaso d'Aquino. p. 295. Archived fromthe original on 2019-06-08. Retrieved2019-03-25.
^Schinz, H. R. (1821)."Wiedische KatzeFelis wiedii".Das Thierreich eingetheilt nach dem Bau der Thiere: als Grundlage ihrer Naturgeschichte und der vergleichenden Anatomie von dem Herrn Ritter von Cuvier. Säugethiere und Vögel, Volume 1. Stuttgart, Tübingen: Cotta. pp. 235–236.
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