The Kodkod Cat, Leopardus guigna or Güiña, as it is known locally, is the smallest of the eight species of New World cats included in genus Leopardus that populate the Americas, and is one of the smallest cats in the world. Ranging from central Chile to northern Chilean Patagonia and present marginally in southern Argentina, it is a stocky cat with short legs and a thick and bushy tail that inhabits the Southern Beech and temperate rain forests of the Pacific slope of the Patagonian Andes.

Like all wild cats, it roams extensively across large feeding territories where it looks for prey, mostly birds, rodents and the occasional lizard, hunting more actively at night, although it is quite active in the daylight too. It looks for prey among the bushy undergrowth and on the ground, but is also an excellent climber, and it will stalk and chase birds in the canopy, moving aptly in tree branches, where it also rests in the middle of the dense foliage.

Guiña or Kodkod (Leopardus guigna), Chiloé Island, Chile © Enrique Couve, Far South Exp

Unfortunately the sustained loss of its once vast forest habitat has put this peculiar cat in a delicate conservation status, being currently listed as vulnerable and included in CITES appendix II. However, with a little patience and luck, you can still find them in isolated pockets of forest in southern Chile, especially around Los Lagos and Chiloé Island, where our fellow expedition leader Enrique Couve took these stunning photographs of a melanistic individual.

Guiña or Kodkod (Leopardus guigna), Chiloé Island, Chile © Enrique Couve, Far South Exp

kodkod cat | kodkod cat | kodkod cat | kodkod cat | kodkod cat | leopardus guigna, southern chile, chiloe island, patagonia, chile, wild cats, tepuhueico woodlands, tepuhueico park, tantauco park, chiloe national park