Leopardus Lineage ~ Ocelot / Leopardus Genus ~ Felidae

The 8 Cats of the Leopardus Lineage

The Leopardus lineage consists of eight small spotted cats in the Leopardus genus, which are distributed throughout Central and South America, also known as the Ocelot group.

These cats have 36 chromosomes instead of 38 as per all the other Felidae species.

The Felidae ancestors of the Ocelot or Leopardus lineage originated 8 MYA (million years ago) and initially evolved into two species in North America. Later during the second ice age of 2-3 MYA cats migrated over the Panama land bridge to South America, and the Ocelot group diversified further to the eight species of today.

Species taxonomy updates since 2017

2017 - Eastern Oncilla / Tigrina (Leopardus emiliae) split from the Northern Tiger Cat (Leopardis tigrinus).
2021 - Pampas Cat (Leopardus colocola) split into 5 species (L. braccatus, L. colocola, L. garleppi, L. munoai and L. pajeros).
2022 - Uruguayan Pampas Cat L. munoai nomenclature corrected to L.fasciatus.

Note: The website charts and pages are based on the 2017 IUCN CatSG Felidae taxonomy.

Leopardus Lineage Cats - Classification

In scientific classification (taxonomy) the small wild cats of the Leopardus lineage belong to the cat family Felidae and the small cat subfamily Felinae.

The higher and lower classifications of this group are as follows:

Kingdom: Animalia (animals)

Phylum: Chordata (vertebrates)

Class: Mammalia (mammals)

Order: Carnivora (carnivores)

Suborder: Feliformia (cat-like)

Family: Felidae (cats)

Subfamily: Felinae (small cats)

Genus: Leopardus

Species: Leopardus pardalis (Ocelot)

Species: Leopardus geoffroyi (Geoffroy’s Cat)

Species: Leopardus jacobita (Andean Cat)