With their saber canines and sleek coats, clouded leopards might be intimidating if their stubby legs weren’t so endearing.
Recent grad Madeline Bursell (BS ’21) and biology professor Paul B. Frandsen (BS ’10) uncovered new insights about the endangered Southeast Asian big cats in a study that sequenced the genomes of two species. The different genetic codes revealed that the island and mainland species may have diverged much earlier than once thought: five million, not one million, years ago.
This new insight is critical for conservation efforts. “These are two separate populations,” says Bursell. “We should think of them as two separate species to conserve.”
