'New' cat species from 10,000 years ago found in Madrid dig

The Leptofelis Vallesiensis, as the excavation team have baptised it, would have lived fairly close to humans at around the time cats as we know them today are thought to have 'domesticated themselves' to make sure they always had a source of food.

They largely resembled the mountain cat (pictured) which still lives wild in parts of Spain today.

The National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN), in conjunction with the High Council of Scientific Research (CSIC) and Madrid's Alcalá University (UAH) made the discovery at the Cerro de los Batallones archaeological site in Torrejón de Velasco, near the capital, where it was recently reported that fossils from the earliest and short-necked species of giraffe had been found.

According to the historians, the 10,000-year-old cat would have been slim and lithe, but weighing between seven and nine kilos – compared with a typical, normal-weight domestic cat's 4.5 to five kilos – meaning they are likely to have been longer and taller than the four-legged friends who occupy an estimated 30% of human homes in the western world.

The Leptofelis was able to jump to staggering heights to enable it to hunt, and had numerous features in common with today's family pets, although also primitive aspects which have now been bred out.

Their front paws were much the same as modern felines, but their back legs – on their femurs, ankles and hips – had bony outcrops supporting the quadratus plantae, a muscle in the base of the paw.

This muscle was also much larger, showing how the cats' impulsion was vastly superior, giving it far greater jumping and climbing skills, enabling it to catch birds in flight and make great bounds when escaping, literally taking off from the ground like African lynx still do today.

They were also able to move much faster due to their muscular structure and extra-flexible elbow joints, a skill essential for escaping predators.

And according to the Cerro de los Batallones team, these latest findings are only the tip of the iceberg: they are now studying skeletons of an even larger wild cat similar to the Leptofelis, details of which they promise to reveal very soon.