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There seem to be several jungle cats in European zoos (ZootierlisteHomepage. I would like to see a Chinese mountain cat.

 

Taxonomic notes on the IUCN red list profile for Leopardus guttulus suggest that the oncilla might make up four separate species, rather than just the current two species. Might this be another source of our new cat species?

Leopardus guttulus (Southern Little Spotted Cat, Southern Tiger Cat)

 

This is getting out of hand! I am more of a lumper than a splitter, which I thought was the trend in recent years (not just cats per se, but overall). I guess not. The more interesting note in the above link is that on one end of the range of the newly described southern tiger cat, there is a significant degree of hybridization with Geoffroy's cat.

 

On a side note...the February 2017 issue of National Geographic has a 16-page article (with just as many gorgeous photos) devoted to small cats of the world. Everything from a Marbled Cat to a melanistic Asiatic Golden Cat is photographed.

 

It's great that national geographic dedicated a whole magazine to small cats I'm really getting board with their talk about space!!

BennettL

 

Prionodon as feline? Dentition is felid and feline affinity is not a novel suggestion, going back to the 19th C, now demonstrates. Were it fossil it would be called a "stem felid" but in standard Linnean boxes it's either a felid, it's own redundant - idae or lumped back down into a padaphyletic grade.

 

But it's not a fossil genus. Nor is it a felid genus. And neither makes the taxon either redundant or paraphyletic.

More to the point, why is any of that relevant to this thread?

 

Well it would explain the species number of felids being bumped slightly if it has been lumped: there has been talk of this in the past before.

Prionodon = Prionodontidae so the family is redundant; if you have to give it a family, it's the most primitive cat after all. And sooner or later it will end up lumped on formal taxonomic lists as such. Rather than a "Viverrid" or a senseless one genus stray family.

It's a living fossil Felid and it's mix of felid (advanced) and primitive (genet/Poiana) characters were a riddle since it's discovery though it was lumped into paraphyletic, olden Viverridae hub also including Nandinia, herpestids and Madagascan carnivores. As that thinking was out of fashion and genetic studies advanced, it became a sister to traditional Felidae.

 

Manis was split, and phylogenetically higher taxa than genera are redundant; the problem comes with converting phylogenetic taxonomy to public friendly Linnean. Some of those taxa have more genera than you think ie. Ailuridae has things like scavenging carnivores in its fossil record, Odobenidae too was a lot more diverse in its past. Or they are genuine isolates like the aardvark or even the walrus within pinnipeds (still not proved which "side" walruses are on).

Asian linsangs however are finally resolved as primitive cats (felid side of Feliformia). As was predicted based on morphological evidence. In the past they would have been regarded as such once their true position was proven. Prionodontidae today remains as an artifact of confusion when trying to map Linnean boxes and phylogenetic taxonomy onto one another.

 

My argument is since Prionodontidae was only created like Cryptoproctidae out of a bygone confusion. It contains only Prionodon ergo there is no need to bother with the "family" in PT. Whereas it is also superfluous in the old fashioned system because it is no longer a mystery. It's a cat, not a genet. Suppose you have to lump it - where is most rational?

Barbourofelids were classically felid and have the morphotype: they were split only out of confusion were this similarity convergence, remember. They are stem cats, walks like a duck quacks like a duck. Barbourofelidae would be sunk into Felidae in a stem-defined taxonomy BTW; closer to living cats than to any other feliforms. Prionodon is (or would be) a stem cat also, it was given its own family out of its mysterious affinities. Well mystery solved: it's a cat after all, like the Barbourofelids were cats after all.

Blurring the populist Linnean and node based scientific phylogeny creates pointless dilemmas like what to do with intermediate forms such as Asian linsangs. Taken alone there is no problem of such forms in either system, though the former is easy to abuse with wastebin taxa like Gruiformes, Insectivora etc.

Node based naming of clades is also to blame. Stem based is less messy in itself, it makes less nonsense when taxa shift position. Node based definitions did not take problematica into account and are harder to merge neatly with classical, populist taxonomies.

 

@SealPup For someone who writes some well-informed posts, you do come out with plenty of odd stuff. Possibly I'm just not clever enough to understand what you're saying, but in this case I'm certain you're wrong. I have read the studies TLD asked for, from the 2003 paper to recent mtDNA sequencing and, yes, they show the Asian linsangs (quite well aware they're a family, thanks) are the closest living relatives of cats. That does not mean they are cats. Every family has a closest relative - that's how evolution works. Classification must be nested to reflect that, so there's no contradiction with a monogeneric family, as TLD points out. Perhaps that will put this bizarre tangent to rest?

 

Not really: phylogenetic taxonomy does not require nesting by node definitions. Name the branch not the node. There actually is a definition of Felidae based upon something like closer to Felis itself than to Viverra/Herpestes/Hyena. Monogeneric families are senseless because synonymity with the genus makes usage redundant, since it can't be a clade defined by two genera. (Stem based definitions would make it possible but still pointless).

That is all I was trying to say. That and Prionodon might end up on felid lists for this reason - it is a Felid by some definitions. Fin.

 

Today I received an email from IUCN Cat Specialist Group that the next issues of Cat News are getting mailed. For at least the last couple years they have been mailing two magazines - the standard one with general cat news and articles, plus a "special edition." These have traditionally focused on one region or country (the last one was on cats of Iran). However the upcoming special edition will be devoted solely to an updated taxonomy. This is one I am really looking forward to and I am sure some of you will be anxious to hear my report.

 

New open-access paper on carnivore taxonomy.

Comprehensive species set revealing the phylogeny and biogeography of Feliformia (Mammalia, Carnivora) based on mitochondrial DNA

 

And the cats are out of the bag! At last - a list of taxa is now available on the website: http://catsg.org/fileadmin/fileshar...3.10._SI_11/CatNews_Special_Issue11_76-77.pdf

The new species are: Prionailurus javanensis (which includes Indonesian and Philippine leopard cats), Felis bieti (Chinese mountain cat) and Felis lybica (African and Asiatic wildcats).

Oddly enough the oncilla has actually lost some subspecies. So much has been modified from a subspecific point-of-view; I look forward to reading the whole document!

 

Chinese mountain cat back to full species? I wonder why it was downlisted to subspecies previously. I have not read it yet, but are you saying we are back to Felis lybica and Felis sylvetris for wildcat? If so (I will have to read the link), I find it quite surprising but at least I have photos of both so it won't mess up my cat photography. However the new leopard cat distinction is a real shock.