
The Pampas cat (Leopardus munoai) is one of the most cryptic and least known small felids in the Southern Cone, primarily associated with open environments of the Pampa biome (García-Perea 1994; Nascimento et al. 2021). In Uruguay, knowledge of its distribution has historically been limited, based on scarce and mostly old records, with a lack of confirmed evidence for more than a decade (Ximénez 1975; González & Martínez-Lanfranco 2010). Here, we present new confirmed records of L. munoai obtained between 2022 and 2025 within the framework of the Uruguay Small Wild Cat Program - Rock and Pampa, using an integrated approach that combined systematic trail camera monitoring, citizen science records, and road surveys. The cumulative effort generated verifiable and updated evidence of the species’ presence across different regions of the Uruguayan Pampa biome. Our findings demonstrate the current persistence of L. munoai in Uruguay, primarily associated with natural grasslands. Despite broad spatial coverage, detection rates remained consistently low across all survey methods, reflecting a very small population size. Overall, these results support a classification of the species as Critically Endangered at the national level and underscore the importance of long-term, multi-source monitoring for assessing the status of cryptic and low-density mammals.
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