A short-tailed Tsushima leopard cat photographed on Tsushima. Credit: Ministry of the Environment, Tsushima Wildlife Conservation Center
Tsushima leopard cats are an endangered species found only on this isolated island. The most recent government survey estimated the population at around 150 individuals, and because domestic cats also inhabit the same landscape, introgression is a legitimate conservation concern.
That is why a team of researchers from Kyoto University became concerned when, during a field survey, they spotted at least three Tsushima leopard cats with shortened tails, a trait relatively common in domestic cats but not previously observed in leopard cats.
The team captured one of these cats for examination and discovered that its tail was half the normal length. This motivated them to investigate whether the tail abnormality reflected recent domestic cat ancestry or a variation arising within the leopard cat population.
"An unusual phenotype can immediately raise concerns about hybridization, but we wanted to determine objectively what the genome actually tells us before drawing conclusions from appearance alone," says first author Yuki Matsumoto.
