Leopardus guttulus (Hensel, 1872)

de Oliveira, Tadeu G., Fox-Rosales, Lester A., Ramírez-Fernández, José D., Cepeda-Duque, Juan C., Zug, Rebecca, Sanchez-Lalinde, Catalina, Oliveira, Marcelo J. R., Marinho, Paulo H. D., Bonilla-Sánchez, Alejandra, Marques, Mara C., Cassaro, Katia, Moreno, Ricardo, Rumiz, Damián, Peters, Felipe B., Ortega, Josué, Cavalcanti, Gitana, Mooring, Michael S., Blankenship, Steven R., Brenes-Mora, Esteban, Dias, Douglas, Mazim, Fábio D., Eizirik, Eduardo, Diehl, Jaime L., Marques, Rosane V., Ribeiro, Ana Carolina C., Cruz, Reginaldo A., Pasa, Emanuelle, Meira, Lyse P. C., Pereira, Alex, Ferreira, Guilherme B., de Pinho, Fernando F., Sena, Liana M. M., de Morais, Vinícius R., Ribeiro Luiz, Micheli, Moura, Vitor E. C., Favarini, Marina O., Leal, Karla P. G., Wagner, Paulo G. C., dos Santos, Maurício C., Sanderson, James, Araújo, Elienê P. & Rodrigues, Flávio H. G., 2024, Ecological modeling, biogeography, and phenotypic analyses setting the tiger cats’ hyperdimensional niches reveal a new species, Scientific Reports (2395) 14 (1), pp. 1-19 : 9

Leopardus guttulus (Hensel, 1872) 37:

The Atlantic Forest tiger-cat is a 2.38 kg cat with a medium-large, bushy, thinly ringed tail, with a slightly bulky body adorned with large and numerous round rosettes in a background color with typically (but not restricted to) reddish/brownish-yellow tone, and has two pairs of teats ( Fig. 8c ).

The species is found in the dwindling forest formations of the Atlantic Forest biome, with tree cover of 89% (although with a high variation, 0–100%) and a canopy height of 12 m, mostly in lowlands and areas of fertile soils in tropical/sub-tropical sites with either hot or mild summers with high rainfall and warm temperatures, notably where the ocelot is either absent or present in low density. Intraguild interactions appear to play a limiting role in the species multidimensional space.

Figures

Figure 8. Classic examples of the tiger cat species complex: (a) the savanna tiger-cat (Leopardus tigrinus); (b) the new species, the clouded tiger-cat (Leopardus pardinoides); and (c) the Atlantic Forest tiger-cat (Leopardus guttulus). Drawings by Ricardo Ribeiro; photographs: (a) authors, (b) Johannes Pfleiderer, (c) authors.