The Late Miocene radiation of modern Felidae: a genetic assessment

This landmark genetic study reconstructed the evolutionary history of the cat family, using molecular data across all living felid species to resolve the major lineages and their divergence times. It established that modern cats arose from a relatively recent and rapid radiation in the late Miocene, identifying eight principal lineages and reconstructing a sequence of intercontinental migrations enabled by sea-level changes. The work placed the many small wildcat species, including the Leopardus, Prionailurus, Felis, and other lineages, within a coherent evolutionary framework, clarifying relationships that morphology alone had obscured. It remains a foundational reference for felid systematics and for understanding how the diverse small cats covered in this collection are related, why convergent traits recur, and how biogeography shaped their distributions.