An entirely new species of cat has been discovered on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Scientists just recently confirmed that the clouded leopard is not the same species as its close relative on the mainland of Southeast Asia. 
The good news here is that, yes, in fact we have another species of big cat to examine. The bad news, for the scientists anyway, is that we’ve already been studying this cat for past few decades and no one really noticed the differences:
“The moment we started comparing the skins of the mainland clouded leopard and the leopard found on Borneo and Sumatra, it was clear we were comparing two different species,” said Dr Andrew Kitchener, from the Department of Natural Sciences, National Museums Scotland and lead author of the scientific paper that described the new species. “It’s incredible that no one has ever noticed these differences.”
Incredible indeed. Glad to hear that species like this are being discovered, but sad to know that like almost every sub-tropical mammal and organism, habitat destruction (i.e. forest destruction and agricultural development) is its greatest threat.
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This is spectacular! There is hope.
Could you please email me companies that are currently using rainforest beef? I want to inform my students.
Thank you,
Jodi
Jodi,
Here are some resources you should checkout:
http://ran.org/fileadmin/materials/education/factsheets/RAN_BeefFacts.pdf
http://www.vsc.org/0902-environment.htm
http://www.mongabay.com/external/brazil_beef_amazon.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalisation/story/0,,1747904,00.html
I would love to learn more about this new species and maybe you could give me some photos that compares from the southeast asian clouded leopard. Thank you