Tsushima leopard cat ツシマヤマネコ

The Tsushima leopard cat is a leopard cat found only on Tsushima, an island group in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. It is thought to have arrived about 100,000 years ago, when the islands were connected to the mainland. The Ministry of the Environment's sixth survey (fiscal 2020–2024), published in 2026, estimated about 90 or about 100 resident animals on the northern island (Kamijima), and 17 individuals were identified on the southern island (Shimojima). Partly because the cat has spread across the southern island, the population was assessed as recovering. It is listed as Critically Endangered (IA) on Japan's Red List and is a Natural Monument.

It is about the size of a house cat, with a head-and-body length of 50–60 cm and a weight of about 3–5 kg. The body is covered in spots, and distinct brown and white stripes run up the forehead. The tail is thick and fairly long. The backs of the ears have white spots, known in Japanese as “tiger-ear spots”, which house cats do not have. Its coat is said to be lighter than that of the Iriomote cat.

It is nocturnal, most active at dawn and dusk, and lives alone outside the breeding season. Rodents are its most important prey, and rodents and moles together make up 60–80% of its diet throughout the year. Birds become more important in winter, and frogs when the rice fields are flooded. It mates in winter and gives birth in spring, usually to 1–2 kittens (some sources say 1–3), fewer than a house cat. Young become independent at about six months.

Within Japan it is found only on Tsushima in Nagasaki Prefecture. Tsushima is divided into a northern island (Kamijima) and a southern island (Shimojima), and most of the cats live on the northern island. Reliable records on the southern island had ceased, but the cat was confirmed there again in 2007 for the first time in 23 years, and the sixth survey found that it had spread widely across the southern island.

Its best habitat is thought to be a mix of evergreen broadleaf forest, deciduous broadleaf forest, farmland and streams. It uses valleys, forest edges and hillsides at relatively low elevations.

There is no record of the Tsushima leopard cat being used to create a cat breed. The Bengal breed was developed from mainland leopard cats and house cats and has nothing to do with the Tsushima population. The concern with house cats is that they can pass diseases on to the wild cats.

The population was estimated at 250–300 animals in the 1960s but declined sharply, and the estimate for the northern island in the early 2010s was “70 or 100”. The sixth survey, published in 2026, assessed the population as recovering, partly because of its spread on the southern island, but noted that numbers may be falling in parts of the northern island. The main threats are fewer rodents to eat (due to the loss of deciduous broadleaf forest and the decline of undergrowth caused by deer and wild boar), habitat fragmentation from roads and river works, road traffic, and diseases from house cats. According to the Tsushima Wildlife Conservation Center, 164 road accidents have been recorded since 1992, and 151 animals have died (as viewed on 20 September 2026). Accidents were frequent in fiscal 2025, and in January 2026 the Ministry of the Environment, Nagasaki Prefecture and Tsushima City declared a “traffic accident emergency”. The Tsushima Wildlife Conservation Center opened in 1997, and Fukuoka City Zoo first succeeded in captive breeding in 2000. Today the cats are kept at zoos and other facilities around Japan. There is no IUCN Red List assessment for the subspecies; the leopard cat as a species is listed as Least Concern (LC).

The scientific name P. b. euptilurus was given in 1871 by the American zoologist Elliot to a northern subspecies of the leopard cat, based on an animal from the Amur River basin in Russia. Japan's Ministry of the Environment places the Tsushima leopard cat in this subspecies. The 2017 taxonomic report of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group includes populations from the Russian Far East, northeastern China, Taiwan, Tsushima and Iriomote Island in this subspecies, so the Tsushima leopard cat is the Tsushima population of that subspecies.