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News wires have come alive with the discovery of a new species of clouded leopard in Borneo and Sumatra. The new cats name is Neofelis diardi. This is pretty amazing, but I'd like to examine a few discrepancies in what I've heard.
First, many stories are reporting that this cat was just discovered, making it sound like nobody has ever seen one before. That's not true. Researchers have known about clouded leopards on the islands for at least a hundred years. The genetics of these cats had simply never been studied before.
Second, the Bornean Bay Cat (Catopuma badia) has been isolated on Borneo long enough to make it a separate species. I can't help but wonder why anyone ever expected that another cat living on the exact same island would have somehow frozen in time, staying just the same as the Clouded Leopards (Neofelis nebulosa) on the mainland. This just doesn't makes sense, especially considering that the island and mainland cats have noticeable differences in appearance.
Befuddlement aside, I'm glad to see the Clouded Leopard getting some much needed scientific and public attention.
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