Of course, the media has gone wild and over-reached a bit in highlighting the “new species” discovery of the Borneo/Sumatra clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi) as such a remarkable find in many news articles. Indeed, the cat was there all the time, and has been “in the books” for 184 years.

Of course, as has been mentioned within previous comments, I first talked about the reclassification of the two clouded leopards via this blog, on December 15, 2006, here: “Clouded Leopards: Two Species.”

It is exciting to find something that’s been under our noses all the time, but let’s be realistic about it not exactly being such a startling “new species,” as the felids, in general, are being genetically reclassified into new species and subspecies at an increasing rate.

I highly recommend Darren Naish’s detailed scientific examination of this find, “Belated welcome to a ‘new’ clouded leopard.. named in 1823″.

The “new” clouded leopard is the darker one, on the right here.

Directly above is the lighter clouded leopard shown on an Indian stamp issue and thus it is Neofelis nebulosa.