Beautiful new cat species is first to be named in a century

 

The tilcayo (Leopardus tilcayo) in an animal refuge in La Paz, Bolivia. Image courtesy of Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz

Joel Kontinen

Some evolutionist say that animal species die all the time.  Contrast to this a tiger cat recently found in Bolivia.    

The tiger cat is one of the creatures they describe as Lazarus animals.

Tiger cats, which are about the size of a house cat are found in Costa Rica in Central America, and across a vast swathe of South America including Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Historically, there have been many local and scientific names for them, but they all got subsumed into a single species, Leopardus tigrinus.

Eduardo Eizirik at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and his colleagues have analysed the complete genomes of 38 individuals from the Leopardus genus, including 26 tiger cats from across their known range.

L. tilcayo has a combined head and body length of between about 42 and 50 centimetres and weighs between 1.5 and 2 kilograms. The genomes revealed that it diverged from the lineage containing L. tigrinus and L. pardinoides nearly 1.4 million years ago.

Source:  

Chris Simms 2026 Beautiful new cat species is first to be named in a century | New Scientist 17 September 

A Lazarus monkey has been found in the Congo

 

The newly recognised monkey species Colobus congoensis. Image courtesy of Daniel Rosengren

Joel Kontinen

A new Lazarus animal, black colobus monkey from a remote part of the Congo Basin rainforest, is thought to be severely threatened by poaching.

The monkey is known as Likweli to local people who hunt it for bushmeat, and it has been given the scientific name Colobus congoensis. It lives in one of the most inaccessible parts of Africa, without paved roads or infrastructure. This monkey is relative to other Asian colobine monkeys.

 “A typical expedition involves multiple modes of transportation: a flight, followed by a motorcycle ride, two days of hiking on foot and finally travel by dugout canoe to reach the monkey’s range,” says Kate Detwiler at Florida Atlantic University.

Detwiler and her colleagues believe the species’ mask-like face may represent ancestral traits that were present before the African and Asian colobine lineages diverged over 8 million years ago. according to evolution, “If so, likweli may have retained characteristics that were subsequently modified or lost in the other African colobus species,” says Detwiler.

Scientists first became aware of the species in 2008 when a team surveying on the banks of the Lomami river, in what is now Lomami National Park, took a photo that showed only a part of a monkey that had not been seen before, high in the canopy.

Then, in November 2018, another group again spotted the monkey, which is about 1.3 metres long and weighs around 7 kilograms. Between 2018 and 2022, there were 114 recorded observations of the new species, 25 of which were from vocalisations.

Source:

James Woodford 2026 Congolese monkey with mask-like face and strong BO is new to science | New Scientist 15 July

 

Elusive dwarf fox, feared extinct, photographed for the first time on island of Yucatán

 

Image courtesy of (Rathe fael Chacón.

Joel Kontinen

The Lazarus effect  is evident in tiny foxes in the Yucatan.

The tiny animal was part of the mysterious Cozumel fox population, a potentially undescribed species that had not been officially sighted in more than 20 years.

Park and museum officials spotted and captured the fox in 2023 and, after a health assessment, released it back into the wild. Researchers have now shared the photographs and documented the encounter in a new study published May 4 in the journal Neotropical Biology and Conservation.

Although the rediscovery confirms that Cozumel foxes are still alive, they are likely on the brink of extinction, the study authors noted

.Cozumel foxes are an example of insular dwarfism, an evolutionary process in which larger animals, including fox-sized mammals, evolve to be smaller after colonizing islands, where there are limited resources and less space than on the mainland. The foxes aren't the only mammals that have shrunk on Cozumel over time; other examples include the island's.critically endangered pygmy raccoons (Procyon pygmaeus) and dwarf coatis.

The Darwinist tend to picture this an evolutionary process, but it is not.  

Source:

Patrick Pester 2026 Elusive dwarf fox, feared extinct, photographed for the first time on island off Yucatán | Live Science 21 June

 

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The giant magnolia snail lives up to its name

 

Image courtesy of Tom Anders/Longleat

Joel Kontinen

This snail is a Lazarus animal: it was thought to be extinct but a study in Vietnam in 2016 said that it was not extinct.

“Measuring 6.5 centimetres, this giant magnolia snail (Bertia cambojiensis) at Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire, UK, certainly lives up to its name. Also known as the Vietnamese giant snail, this species was thought to be extinct until living specimens were discovered in southern Vietnam in 2012. There are estimated to be around 300 left in the world.”

Source:

2025 A giant snail that lives up to its name | New Scientist 30 April

Bizarre worm lizard not seen for 90 years found by landmine removers

 

Image courtesy of Mark Spicer

Joel Kontinen

A subspecies of the Somali sharp-snouted worm lizard was found by a landmine clearance team, the first official sighting since 1931.

“A subspecies of the Somali sharp-snouted worm lizard (Ancylocranium somalicum parkeri) was first reported by scientists in 1931 in the region that is now Somaliland”.  

Last month, Mark Spicer at the HALO Trust, a landmine clearance charity, and his colleagues were in Somaliland, near the Ethiopian border. “One day, one of our minefield supervisors, Hassan Du’ale, called me over to show me something interesting,” says Spicer. “I’m following him, we’re both wearing PPE [personal protective equipment] and he did a bit of scrambling around in the earth and produced a worm lizard.”

Well, evolution says that some animals live for a few years and then die off, but with these animales it’s the opposite.

Source:

Chen Ly 2024 Bizarre worm lizard not seen for 90 years found by landmine removers | New Scientist 7 February 

 

A hummingbird turns out to be a Lazarus animal

Image courtesy of Yurgen Vega/SELVA/ProCAT.

Joel Kontinen

According to evolution, species are going extint. But now and them are new species is found that looks like the old ones.

 They are  called Lazarus animals. 

The newest one concerns a hummingbird that  they found in 1946 but was thought to be extinct Recently, the rearchers spotted a sabrewing in the Colombian mountains. 

Source:; 

Taylor, Luke/ 2022. Hummingbird that was feared extinct is spotted in Colombian mountains New Scientist  65 August

New Lazarus animal found

 

Image courtesy of Jon Flanders, Bat Conservation International.

Joel Kontinen

According to evolution, species tend to flourish for a some time and then die off. However, at times even the dead come back to life.

The (Rhinolophus hilli),is the latest of these Lazarus animals  The most famous of them is the Coelacanth.

In 2020, they found a chameleon in Madagascar. 

 Reseaerchers had not seen the bat  from 1981but it has made  has made a comeback,  Her is what Sience News tells us:

Julius Nziza still remembers the moment vividly. Just before dawn on a chilly January morning in 2019, he and his team gently extracted a tiny brown bat from a net purposely strung to catch the nocturnal fliers.

It was the  horsehow bat. 

Source:

Gibbs. Anna. 2022.  How scientists found an African bat lost to science for 40 years Science News. 30 March.