I noticed my cat, Chester, was being even lordlier than usual this morning and now I know why. For the first time in a century there’s been a new member of the feline family discovered in the wild: Leopardus tilcayo, or the tilcayo tiger cat, or just the tilcayo.
In addition to explaining my cat’s exaggerated haughtiness, it’s also great news for carmakers. You know how many cars are named for cats? Basically, all of them. It may be a dog-eat-dog world out there, but when it comes to actually naming cars, marketers way prefer to give cars a feline moniker than a canine one.
It’s probably why all the good names for cats large and small have been used. In addition to the entire Jaguar brand, there’s the Cougar, Lynx, and Bobcat. Those are all just cat names for cars from the Mercury brand. If you weren’t running a Cobra in the ’60s you might be running a Cheetah, or maybe a Sunbeam Tiger. At the same time, no one would look down at you for showing up in a Buick Wildcat.
The one thing all these names have in common is that they’re all performance-oriented vehicles (ok, not every variant of the Lynx is sporty). There’s just something about the way a cat moves that screams fast automobile.
Meet The Tilcayo
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The Tilcayo is a small wild cat species discovered by researcher Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz, who runs a Bolivian conservation program called Programa de Investigación de Félidos Bolivia that focuses on local felines. There’s a report from NBC News that has an interview with the scientist that explains how she found it:
Leopardus tilcayo might have continued to escape notice if not for Nogales-Ascarrunz’s sharp eyes. She volunteers at a wildlife rehabilitation center near La Paz called the Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary.
“I saw this cat. It was really, really small, and I couldn’t believe how small it was,” Nogales-Ascarrunz said. “I thought it was a kitten.”
The cat had been brought in by a man living in a community in the forest near La Paz who had mistaken the cat for a domestic kitten, according to details recorded by the sanctuary. He had fed the animal noodles, rice and eggs, only to realize it was wild and that he could not take care of it. So he brought it to the sanctuary.
Right off the bat, good on that guy for realizing it wasn’t just a house cat and taking it somewhere to be taken care of once he realized his mistake. I don’t blame him for taking in the kitten, as it’s smaller than a normal house cat and absolutely adorable. While some new species of cats are occasionally found, the report notes, it’s usually from doing a genetic analysis of already discovered animals. To find something entirely brand new that scientists weren’t aware of in the wild is extremely rare, and it seems this species broke off from other felines in the area some 1.4 million years ago.
The name for the cat is from a local indigenous language, and no one seems to know for sure exactly what it means. To me it means … car. There are some photos of it from National Geographic above, and more in the publication’s big feature on the discovery.
Who Should Claim The Tilcayo Name?
I think there are a lot of ways to go with this newly discovered member of our big earthly family. An obvious one would be a race car, as there seem to be a lot more new race cars than regular sports cars. Formula E was a good source of new car names, as you can see with the team DS Techeetah.
Mercury is probably history’s biggest fan of cat-based car names, so it’s a bummer the brand isn’t around anymore. Could Ford use this as an excuse to revive the company as a limited-run sports car maker? Probably not, though perhaps the rumored Mustang Raptor could be the Mustang Tilcayo?
China is coming out with new models every year, so maybe a Chinese brand? For some reason, Ora dropped the Funky Cat name, so it no longer deserves the honor. BYD loves naming its cars after animals (it has an entire Ocean Series with aquatic creature names) and is investing heavily in South America.
Whichever brand ends up claiming the name first, I do think it’s only right that they spend some money with local organizations to protect the habitat of this fine creature. While it’s unknown how many tilcayos there are, it’s almost certainly a creature at risk of extinction and in an area that’s already under pressure from development.
What do you think? What should the first tilcayo be?
Top photo: Current Biology/Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz,
According to Wikipedia:
I’m going to say, based on a few of those pictures, tilcayo means “big swingin sack”. So…Payne Motors?
I’m thinking a slammed ute for the S American market.
I can’t wait to get my hands on a Toyota Turbo Tilcayo.
Hmm. Small, cute, agile and probably thinks about nothing but murder all day. It’d have to be an MR2 like sports car complete with the tendency for snap oversteer.
TBF to the less-glamorous biologists, people discover new species in the wild all the time, it’s just most of them are plants, bacteria, and insects, and no one in the media gives a damn.
Also, they really didn’t discover it. They just determined the already known animal was actually a distinct species of tiger cat after genetic testing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilcayo
I like how the way I learn about a new scientific discovery in the feline region is from a car website.
I’d like to know why no one has named a car after Geoffroy’s cat or the Kodkod.
I’m just glad they didn’t give the new cat an alphanumeric name!
Bz4F (feline)
Tilcayo already sounds like a Porsche or Volkswagen name. Shouldn’t there be a diesel car called the Smelly Cat?
It could be a Ford called PluggedCat.
I know of at least one car named after a dog.
The Willys-Overland “Whippet” (Nothing to do with DEVO). :p
Greyhound is a BUS and does not count.
Mack Trucks has a dog mascot but is also not a car.
Whippet good!
Well since there are a few cat names still unused aka Leopard, ocelot, Tom, house, manx, to name a few. Maybe cat names are passe. Any unused cat names I missed?
Leopard has been used as a car name several times. Nissan used the name for 20 years on a Skyline/Lauriel related coupe/sedan. We got them over here as the Infiniti M30 and J30. It’s also the name of a Polish classic sports car company that’s been around since 2005. And back in the early 80’s the US Electricar Corporation sold EV Renault LeCars called the Lectric Leopard.
Ocelot is currently in use on a British army personal carrier.
Manx has also been on a car, the Meyers Manx VW based dune buggies.
And while not an official name that I can tell, the 90’s Rover 220 Turbo Coupe are often referred to as Tomcats.
The Germans have a couple of Leopards
Meyers Manx
No on the Mustang Tilcayo. A Horse Cat makes no more sense than a Horse Bird, although I could at least see a winged horse with talons for hooves and some sort of beak at the end of its muzzle. It’s harder to work a cat in there. Also, I’m still pissed at them for polluting the brand with the crossover.
Sorry that would be a Griffin, no relationship to Peter.
Ah – that is correct.
Vauxhall already have a Griffin:https://www.theautopian.com/you-need-to-watch-this-charming-yet-terrifying-vauxhall-ad-from-1973/
Whenever I read someone complain about “polluting the brand” my first thought is: “Have you actually driven one?” Because most people I’ve seen complain about it have never spent any time behind the wheel of one.
The driving experience is anything but the point. It’s completely about the styling and the identification of the Mustang as a pony car – a small, sporty 2 door and not a blobby hatchback. For me, it doesn’t matter whether the crossover drives like a Formula 1 car, it’s still a crossover and not a pony car. And as pretty much everyone who doesn’t like it says, “What’s next? A “Mustang” truck? A “Mustang foor door luxury sedan?” The Mustang brand is now somewhat meaningless.
The ’71-’73 barges and the ’74-’78 rebadged Pintos did nothing for the “brand”. Since the mid ’80s Mustang to me as a brand has come to mean power and performance, and the blobby crossover fits that.
Fair enough. For me, though, the power is not what distinguished the Mustang. It got big in the ’70’s but they never called a station wagon a “Mustang”. And it remained leaner and trimmer than many other muscle cars of the time. The Mustang II was a clear abomination, and they properly got things back in line later as far as quality and power. To me, calling the e-thing a Mustang is like Lambo calling the Urus a Countach, or Porsche branding the Panamera a 911. Those names have meaning and diluting them is a bad idea.
From the Japanese Nostalgic Car website:
“There are rumors that Daihatsu, Suzuki, and Toyota are working on a new platform that will underpin a third-gen Copen, new Cappuccino, and the long-awaited Toyota S-FR. […] The world desperately needs more affordable sports cars, so hopefully the halls of the Copen Factory won’t be silent for too long.”
Yeah, Daihatsu just discontinued the Copen, a kei sports car/convertible, and is apparently looking to start producing a successor.
So the Daihatsu Tilcayo would be a most fitting name for the Copen’s successor especially since it’d be a turbocharged *kei* sports car.
A small GTI/Scirocco type of VW could use a name like this! They need a new hot hatch to revive the aura they once had. Although, the first pictures reminded of a Tabby, so the Tilcayo Tabby also has a nice ring to it.