Research overview: untangling tigrina taxonomy

Few felid groups have generated as much naming confusion as the small spotted tiger cats of South America, variously called oncilla, tigrina, or tiger cat. This overview traces the tangled taxonomy, from lumping all such cats as Leopardus tigrinus to recognizing the southern tigrina as a separate species, Leopardus guttulus, and debating the status of northern and Andean populations. It explains how morphological similarity, broad ranges, and hybridization obscured species boundaries until molecular data clarified them. The piece discusses ongoing uncertainty about how many species the group contains and where their limits lie. It exemplifies the broader challenge of small Neotropical cat systematics, where cryptic diversity, reticulate evolution, and inconsistent common names have made this one of the most unstable corners of felid taxonomy.