Genetic analyses found a level of divergence between L. tigrinus from Costa Rica and from central and southern Brazil comparable to that between species in the Leopardus group, suggesting that the two populations have been isolated, perhaps by the Amazon River, for approximately 3.7 million years. Both groups had relatively low levels of genetic diversity (Johnson et al. 1999). More analysis of geographic partitioning, with additional samples from other parts of the range, is needed to confirm whether this taxon should be split into two species. There is also evidence of hybridization between L. tigrinus and L. colocolo (Johnson et al. 1999, Eizirik et al. 2007) and L. geoffroyi (Eizirik et al. 2007) in areas where their range overlaps.