Clouded Tiger Cat

20.04.2024

Clouded Tiger Cat

Why in the  news?                                                                                         

               A new species of tiger cat, the clouded tiger cat, discovered in Brazil, faces threats from deforestation and illegal hunting.

About Clouded Tiger Cats:

• It is a new species of forest-dwelling tiger cat. Its scientific name is Leopardus pardinoides
•  It is found in the cloud forests of the southern Central American and Andean Mountain chains, which stretch from Costa Rica through Panama, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina.

Features:

• It is a long-tailed cat with short-round ears, weighing 2.27 kg.
• It has a remarkably margay-looking head, which has a nice dense soft fur of a rich reddish/orangish/grayish-yellow background color adorned with irregularly shaped medium-large ‘cloudy’ rosettes that are strongly marked and often coalesce.
• Distinctively, it has only one pair of mammae/teats.

What are Tiger Cats?

• Tiger cats , also known as the oncilla.
•  They are small spotted cats that quietly stalk Central and South America, perfectly adapted for clambering in trees and hunting small prey.
• They are among the shyest and smallest wild cats in the Americas and much smaller than most domestic house cats.
• Until recently, they were split into two species: the northern tiger cat (Leopardus tigrinus), and the Atlantic Forest tiger cat(Leopardus guttulus).
• The northern tiger cat is native to the savanna and shrublands of the Guiana Shield and central Brazil, while the Atlantic tiger cat lives further south in forested areas of central to southern Brazil, down through Paraguay and northeastern Argentina.
• Researchers recently concluded that the family includes a third species: the clouded tiger cat (Leopardus pardinoides).

                             Source: The Times of India