A Wild Brazilian Cat is Actually Two Separate Species

The Brazilian tigrina looks a lot like a housecat. Image credit: yvetteSoler/Flickr The tigrina is a housecat-sized wild cat that roams through two different regions of Brazil: the northeast corner and the south. But DNA sequencing has shown that these two separate tigrina populations are actually two entirely different species. A team of Brazilian researchers analyzed the cats' genomes and found no evidence of inbreeding between the more numerous southern tigrinas and the sparse tigrina population in the northeast. The scientists are now categorizing the southern population as its own species, called Leopardus guttulus.