Research overview: caching and larder behavior in pumas and leopards

An overview of how solitary cats protect and prolong access to their kills by caching them. Pumas cover carcasses with vegetation and soil and revisit them over several days, while leopards famously hoist prey into trees, both behaviors reducing loss to scavengers and competitors and allowing the cat to extract more of a large kill over time. This survey synthesizes evidence on caching frequency, the influence of competitor and scavenger pressure, ambient temperature and carcass size, and how caching affects kill-rate estimation and carcass ecology. It connects food-storage behavior to kleptoparasitism avoidance and to the energetics of solitary predation. The topic illustrates an important behavioral adaptation by which cats defend the value of their kills in competitive environments.