This is not really a pressing question, I am just curious about how new species are added to iNat. Will the new cat species Leopardus tilcayo be added to the site? How will it work? Does someone have to submit an observation before it is added?
You can flag the lowest available taxon, requesting that the name be added. Typically, we only add names that have observations though. There are way too many species out there for us to manually add and curate all of them.
Here is a short article from iNatHelp that walks you through the process: https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000170372-how-do-i-add-a-missing-species-to-the-inaturalist-database-
For anyone like me who doesn’t know the taxon mentioned in the title, it is a small South American wildcat (from Bolivia) that resulted from a recent split after genetic analysis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilcayo_tiger_cat
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/17/new-cat-species-identified-bolivia
If someone in Bolivia observes one …
Taxon IS added – but no obs
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1712052/history
When that iNat first eventually happens, and I really hope it will someday, definitely let me know! I look forward to seeing it!
It’s possible there is an observation already on iNat under a different ID, among the Leopardus records from Bolivia.
FYI, you can follow the species so you will get notified if it is observed on iNat.
This could be worth looking at. Would be very exciting.
This could be one!
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/368769386
Well, it’s the only Leopardus observation in Nor Yungas, Bolivia. I did some poking around because cute cats!!!, but I am utterly unqualified to have any kind of actual opinion.
For more fun, here are the 12 observations in Bolivia that are at genus level:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?lrank=genus&place_id=6783&preferred_place_id=1&subview=table&taxon_id=41986
And here are all 161 Leopardus observations in Bolivia: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=6783&preferred_place_id=1&subview=table&taxon_id=41986
There aren’t any observations from Bolivia of L. tigrinus, which apparently is the species they thought this cat was at first.
The likweli (Colobus congoensis, a monkey) was flagged two months ago and took a few weeks to get added. No observations yet.
I flagged Leopardus when I had just seen the news on LinkedIn, and the tilcayo was added the same day.
My impression is that in practice basically all mammals and bird species are added regardless once the appropriate taxonomic authority includes it. At least I’ve spent a good deal of time searching obscure mammals and birds on here and I’ve never run into a species that did not have a page on here (barring recently described ones), in spite of many of them having 0 observations.
The tetrapod classes as well as a handful of invertebrate clades are “complete taxa” on iNat, and contrary to all the other groups, the goal with them is to have all species included.
https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/curator%2Bguide#completetaxa
https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/complete_taxa_list
https://www.inaturalist.org/blog/13377-tallying-observed-vertebrate-species-with-complete-taxa
You’ll only see tallies like this within complete taxa:
Note that technically the new species shouldn’t have been added yet since it hasn’t yet appeared in iNat’s external taxonomy source for mammals; formally from iNat’s perspective it doesn’t exist yet: https://www.mammaldiversity.org/
The last time a Leopardus species was described in 2023, ASM, our taxonomic source for mammals, ended up calling it a synonym of an existing species. Maybe we should wait on this?
There are 2 obs – with discussion ranging across MANY comments.
And a good taxon picture of the captive animal from Wiki.
iNaturalist should wait until the Mammal Diversity Database adds the taxon, according to the iNat policy. For the time being, they are simply a population of Oncilla.
In spite of all the “public” excitement about this new taxon, I have read comments from some taxonomists/mammalogists who question whether this taxon warranted elevation at all.
I agree. Might be a case of the popular media getting ahead of the mammalogical community in celebrating this new taxon.
I’m curious about the number of people who are identifying it without any comments. I’m certainly not qualified to judge any individual identifier’s skills or credentials! But with the “cool” factor of a newly-described cat, I think there’s a greater than usual risk of careless identifications.
How many people are identifying based on knowing the species that well, and how many are identifying because they want that to be a Tilcayo? (I don’t want to call out anyone here. As a birder this is a question I ask of myself constantly.)
Slowing things down would reduce that risk, which might be an additional argument for not having the species in iNat until it is recognized by the relevant taxonomic authority.
Totally agree. I don’t think this species should have been added to iNat so quickly and certainly don’t believe all of the agreeing IDers of these records are competent in IDing it. It’s a big mistake to get too far ahead of the primary literature with taxonomy on iNat. A year from now, this taxon could be relegated to a junior synonym. Or maybe it’s a good species and will stand. Too early to say.
“I’ll see it when I believe it” is a humorous saying for when we let our excitement overrun our logic.
Is it possible for a curator, or iNat staff, to withdraw the taxon until scientists support adding a ‘new’ taxon ? Since we can ID as that, (some) iNatters will.
I went ahead and removed the two observation photos that had been added to the taxon page, because they added absolutely nothing compared to the one photo that shows the species clearly, even if they are correctly identified.
This might need to be locked or something. (I will definitely not be getting into an edit war here, as it’s unlikely I’ll even notice if someone adds them back.)