cat

The Leopardus tilcayo is the first entirely new species of cat to be discovered since the Pampas cat in 1923. Biologist Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz working in Bolivia was called to look at a the tiny cat which was discovered in the Yungas forest in 2017.

Together with Eduardo Eizirik, and Jonas Lescroart they were able to use genomic analysis to conclude that this was a new species. The articles goes further into how this coudl help uncover other branches in the cat family and help reclassify some lesser known or studies cats. This helps determine population sizes and direct conservation efforts.

Modern genomics lets scientists see deeper differences photographs and fieldnotes miss. In the new study, when the researchers compared complete genomes from 38 individuals across the Leopardus genus, the results showed that not only was L. tilcayo different from the other tiger cat species, but it had diverged from them around 1.4 million years ago—an evolutionary distance comparable to that between modern lions and extinct cave lions.

The study released last month is accessible on Current Biology for the fortunate few who have access.

I discovered this articles from Robb Knight's weeknotes.

A gallery of cats at train stations!

Discovered via @Szescstopni on Mastodon.

Exciting news, this paper outlines the first documented sighting of the sand cat (Felis margarita) in Libya, and new sightings of the Saharan striped polecat (Poecilictis libyca) outside of it's known region. The paper then goes into the observation methods, and people involved in collecting the images and tracking these cats.

More images, and a video can be found on a The Guardian aricle called, 'No one believed it': how a YouTube video accidentally proved Libya's sand cat really does exist.

Purrrrr

Dicovered via Stefan Judis' newsletter

After analysing 408 YouTube videos, researchers have found that cats show a tendency to sleep on their left side with 65% choosing this "leftward sleeping position".

This finding is not only interesting from the perspective that cats show a significant population-level bias for the left side but also fits very well with previous findings on functional specialization in the mammalian right hemisphere. The right hemisphere is dominant for threat processing, and in most species, animals react faster when a predator is approaching from the left side.

So cats do try their best to communicate vocally.

Research shows that, "listeners were able to identify domestic cat meows from two different contexts significantly better than chance, and that experienced listeners were better judges than inexperienced ones." Taking samples from two of three sibling cats showed that rising intonations were related to food and falling intonations with the vet.

Originally posted on Mastodon.