Research overview: the earliest felid dispersals into North America

This overview surveys how and when true cats first reached North America, ending the long cat gap. The earliest felids evolved in the Old World, and their descendants crossed the Bering land bridge during the Miocene, reintroducing cats to a continent where only nimravid false sabertooths had previously filled cat-like roles. The survey reviews the fossil evidence marking these arrivals, the Pseudaelurus-grade immigrants that established felids in the New World, and the climatic and sea-level conditions that opened intercontinental routes. It discusses how this dispersal seeded the later North American radiations of both sabertooths and conical-toothed cats, and how reconstructing the timing of felid immigration helps integrate the continental fossil records into a single, coherent history of cat evolution.