Named Prionailurus kurteni, the new cat species is the smallest known fossil member of the family Felidae to date.

Prionailurus kurteni lived in what is now southern China during the Middle Pleistocene, approximately 300,000 years ago.

“Southeastern Asia and southern China stand out as hotpots of Felidae diversity, especially Felini, with four species of the leopard cat Prionailurus, two species of the golden cat Catopuma, one species of the marbled cat Pardofelis, and one species of the wild cat, Felis chaus,” said Dr. Qigao Jiangzuo from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and colleagues.

“While most Felini species share similar dental traits, they exhibit differences in body sizes and ecological niches, being an example of mammalian diversification/radiation within forested regions.”

“However, little is known about the evolutionary history of Felini in Southeastern Asia and southern China, due to the relatively rare fossil localities in the forest region, and the fact that Felini are small and bones are often fragile, therefore rarely preserved in the fossil record, apart from some isolated teeth, which are not diagnostic in Felini.”

The newly-identified cat species belongs to Prionailurus, an extant genus of small, spotted wild cats native to Asia.

“The genus Prionailurus is the most diverse felid genus in the southern and southeastern forests of Asia, with four (or five) known species,” the paleontologists said.

“Molecular dating supports a Late Pliocene-Early Pleistocene radiation of the genus.”

“There are however no known fossil species of this genus (all known are extant or sp. indet., often in the genus Felis), and the fossils of the genus are extremely rare.”

“Two reasons account for this fact. The first is the rarity of fossil small felines in southern China, mainly represented by cave deposits, in which the small bones are often rare. The second is the historical assignment of all small felines to Felis, without careful study and without revision of these materials.”

A tiny mandibular fragment of Prionailurus kurteni was found in Hualongdong Cave I, a fossil Homo locality in the southernmost part of China’s Anhui province.

“Uranium-series dating gives a range between 275,000 and 331,000 years for the fossil Homo layers, spanning Marine Isotope Stages 9e to 8c,” the researchers said.

“The fossil feline described in the study was also obtained from this layer.”

Prionailurus kurteni represents the smallest known fossil member of the family Felidae to date.

The ancient species is comparable in size to two of the smallest modern cats: the rusty-spotted cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus) and the black-footed cat (Felis nigripes).

“The identification of Prionailurus kurteni suggests a potentially high diversity of Prionailurus during the prehistorical time, underscoring the significance of revisiting the taxonomy of small Felidae to gain a better understanding of the evolution and diversification of this family,” the scientists concluded.

Their paper was published in the journal Annales Zoologici Fennici.

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Qigao Jiangzuo et al. 2024. Prionailurus kurteni (Felidae, Carnivora), a new species of small felid from the Late Middle Pleistocene fossil hominin locality of Hualongdong, southern China. Annales Zoologici Fennici 61 (1): 335-342; doi: 10.5735/086.061.0120