[4] Leopardus species have spotted fur, with ground colors ranging from pale buff, ochre, fulvous and tawny to light gray.

[7] The generic name Leopardus was proposed by John Edward Gray in 1842, when he described two spotted cat skins from Central America and two from India in the collection of the Natural History Museum, London.

[30][31] A 2021 analysis of 142 pampas cat museum specimen collected across South America showed significant morphological differences between them.

[33] Another study in 2023 described another new species, Leopardus narinensis, based on a single dried skin collected in 1989 on the Galeras Volcano in the Nariño Department of Colombia.

[37] The last common ancestor of Leopardus, Puma and Lynx is estimated to have lived 10.95 to 6.3 million years ago, based on analysis of nuclear DNA of cat species.

[4] Leopardus vorohuensis is an extinct species of the genus, of which fossils were found in the Argentinian Vorohué Formation dated to the early Pleistocene; its supraorbital foramen and shape of teeth resemble those of the pampas cat.