India, Sept. 19 -- A tiny wild cat found in Bolivia's Yungas forests has been recently identified as a completely new species of feline, the first such discovery in more than a century. Named Leopardus tilcayo, the cat is known locally as tilcayo and belongs to the tiger cat group found across South America. At around 46cm long and weighing just 1.4kg, it is smaller than an average domestic cat. Its leopard-like spots, short rounded ears, long whiskers and distinctive small face set it apart from the cats already known. The discovery traces back to 2016, when Bolivian biologist and National Geographic Explorer Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz received a call from the Senda Verde wildlife sanctuary regarding a "weird cat". A local man had found the animal near a forest and assumed it was a domestic cat. It was nearly a year later that he realised the animal was wild and took it to the sanctuary. When Nogales-Ascarrunz, who leads the Bolivian Felids Research Program, saw the cat, its appearance immediately stood out. Genetic analysis confirmed it was neither an unusual individual nor a known subspecies, but a species new to science. Thus, what initially appeared to be an unusual-looking cat eventually led to a much bigger discovery. HTC...