Above: an oncilla (Leopardus pardinoides) captured on camera traps within Cloudbridge. This individual is melanistic, making it all black (Photo: Benjamin Luke).
The intricacy of animal speciation, whether that be for amphibians, birds, or mammals, is often a tedious and long process. It includes years of data collection, comparison of data to other sites, and using DNA sampling when possible. The rewarding part of this process is that you may have a newly discovered species by the end of all the hard work.
In Costa Rica, animal speciation isn’t that uncommon. Most often we hear stories of it happening to reptiles or amphibians, as comparatively to other groups they have more nuances that distinguish one species from the next. Seeing speciation happen for more elusive mammals is significantly less common. Finding a mammal that only dwells within protected areas, is nocturnal, and that is very sensitive to human presence poses a much larger challenge. Despite the obstacles, an exciting new development for Costa Rica was announced this year, as a new species of wild cat was revealed as unique. The work initially began as scientists from Costa Rica, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, USA, and Bolivia came together to determine the true distribution of the oncilla tiger-cat complex in order to better support conservation efforts through Central and South America. Ultimately, this new report by Oliveira et al. was able to prove that there are three distinct tiger-cat subspecies (2024).
The “tiger-cat complex” discussed here refers to a group of three subspecies within the genus Leopardus that are closely related to each other in appearance and other features. Specifically, we’re talking about the oncilla tiger-cat (which has other common names listed below). The oncilla (in Costa Rica, the clouded tiger-cat, or Leopardus pardinoides oncilla) is the smallest wildcat in Mesoamerica, which occurs in the Talamanca mountain range of Costa Rica and Panama, and within the Andes mountains of South America. Other subspecies in the tiger-cat complex, from which L. pardinoides is now unique from, reside mainly on the eastern side of South America (the Atlantic Forest tiger-cat, L. guttulus, and the savanna tiger-cat, L. tigrinus).
This process of speciation came after years of dedication to data collection, over 1,400 records, and international collaboration in order to compile the largest dataset ever gathered for the complex. Why is this relevant to Cloudbridge, you may be wondering? In fact, the L. pardinoides oncilla distribution falls within our beautiful forest, and we have many records of seeing the oncilla on our camera traps. In addition, Cloudbridge has worked extensively with two of the authors; José Ramírez-Fernández, a researcher with the organization OneHealth Costa Rica Alliance (OHCRA) who has visited and collected data from the reserve on multiple occasions, and professor Mike Mooring from Point Loma Nazarene University, with whom we have had a camera trap collaboration in the Chirripó National Park for several years.
It’s always an exciting prospect to have a new species be discovered (or revealed, in this case), especially one that is so cryptic. The oncilla is considered to be threatened, which makes the preservation and restoration of its current and historical habitat imperative for its continued success in the future. To read about how these scientists were able to reveal this subspecies as being unique, and what conservation implications this creates for the complex, we encourage you to read their published paper that came out in January of this year.
Suggested Reading:
- Curious how speciation works? While it takes time, there are four ways that animals can become unique from one another, which all have an end result of splitting a single species into two (or maybe more).
- You may hear about the IUCN and the classifications they give to certain groups. This is determined by how “at risk” that group is depending on population size trends and habitat health. Ultimately, based on the IUCN assessments, organizations are able to make a clearer conservation plan for how to protect priority species (like the oncilla).
- Just this year in 2024, there have been tremendous discoveries for new species in and around Costa Rica. The oncilla discussed above is just one example; in addition, scientists discovered four new octopus species in a 100-square-mile area off the coast of Costa Rica, a new salamander species in the páramo of the Talamanca mountains, and new species of orchids (in fact about 11 per year, on average). We’re sure even more discoveries are yet to come!