Research overview: intercontinental dispersal and felid biogeography

The global distribution of cats was shaped by repeated intercontinental migrations across land bridges as sea levels fluctuated. This overview surveys how molecular phylogenies reconstructed at least ten dispersal events in felid history, including movements between Asia and North America across Beringia and into South America after the Isthmus of Panama formed. It discusses how an Asian origin gave rise to lineages that colonized Africa, the Americas, and the islands of Southeast Asia, the role of glacial cycles in opening and closing dispersal corridors, and how integrating phylogeny with paleogeography explains the modern biogeographic pattern of the cat family.