🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This study recorded meows from domestic cats across behavioural contexts and analysed their acoustic structure, also testing whether human listeners could assign calls to context. Meows were acoustica…

Nicholas Nicastro, Michael Owren · Journal of Comparative Psychology · 2003

This landmark ethological treatise compiled decades of close observation into a comprehensive description of feline behaviour, with especially detailed analysis of the predatory sequence: the stalk, t…

Paul Leyhausen · 1979

This study tested whether cats modify their behaviour according to their owner's displayed emotion, comparing happy and angry expressions. Cats showed behaviours consistent with detecting the emotiona…

Moriah Galvan, Jennifer Vonk · Animal Cognition · 2016

Adapting the Strange Situation Test used with infants and dogs, researchers observed how cats behaved when their owner left and returned. Cats displayed distinct attachment styles: secure individuals…

Kristyn Vitale, Alexandra Behnke, Monique Udell · Current Biology · 2019

This experiment tested whether cats hold a spatial representation of unseen humans. A cat was placed in a room while its owner's voice was played from a speaker at one location, then, after a delay, f…

Saho Takagi and colleagues · PLOS ONE · 2021

Using a habituation-dishabituation design, researchers played domestic cats recordings of their owner's voice interspersed with strangers calling their name. Cats showed orienting responses such as ea…

Atsuko Saito, Kazutaka Shinozuka · Animal Cognition · 2013

This study examined whether cats are sensitive to the high-pitched, sing-song register people use when addressing pets. Cats showed stronger behavioural responses when their own owner spoke in cat-dir…

Charlotte de Mouzon and colleagues · Animal Cognition · 2023

Researchers shook opaque containers in front of cats; some rattled and some were silent, and the experimenter then tipped each to reveal whether an object fell out. Cats explored more and showed expec…

Saho Takagi and colleagues · Animal Cognition · 2016

Researchers tested whether cats, like dogs, can use a human pointing gesture to locate hidden food. Cats successfully chose the indicated container above chance, showing they can read this human commu…

Adam Miklosi and colleagues · Journal of Comparative Psychology · 2005

Building on emotion research, this study asked whether cats integrate visual and auditory emotional information from both humans and other cats. Cats were presented with facial expressions and vocalis…

Serenella d'Ingeo, Angelo Quaranta and colleagues · Animals · 2020

Across several experiments in homes and a cat cafe, cats were played sequences of four nouns matched in length and accent followed by their own name. Many cats habituated to the nouns but showed renew…

Atsuko Saito, Kazutaka Shinozuka, Yuki Ito, Toshikazu Hasegawa · Scientific Reports · 2019

This study investigated the mechanism by which domestic cats and some other felids produce the continuous purr during both inhalation and exhalation. Measurements indicated that purring arises from ra…

Dawn Sissom, Donald Rice, Gustav Peters · Journal of Zoology · 1991

This experiment showed that kittens learned an instrumental task more readily by watching their own mother than by watching an unfamiliar adult female, and faster still than kittens learning alone. Th…

Phyllis Chesler · Science · 1969

This early comparative study assessed how cats and dogs solve visible and invisible displacement tasks, the benchmarks Piaget used to chart object permanence in human infants. Both species succeeded a…

Estrella Triana, Robert Pasnak · Animal Learning and Behavior · 1981

In this classic experiment, cats that watched a trained demonstrator perform a lever-press for food learned the response faster than cats given only individual trial-and-error experience. The study pr…

E. Roy John and colleagues · Science · 1968

This comparative study applied trait ratings to multiple felid species, including domestic cats, African lions, snow leopards, clouded leopards, and Scottish wildcats, to ask whether personality dimen…

Marieke Gartner, David Powell, Alexander Weiss · Journal of Comparative Psychology · 2014

Cats are often described as crepuscular, most active at dawn and dusk, and this overview surveys research on how activity and hunting are scheduled in domestic and feral cats. Tracking studies show fl…

When threatened, cats deploy a graded set of agonistic signals including growls, hisses, spits, and yowls, paired with visual displays such as piloerection, arched back, and ear and pupil changes. Thi…

Cats living in groups engage in allogrooming, licking one another, and allorubbing, rubbing bodies together, behaviours that build and maintain social bonds. This overview surveys research on these af…

Allonursing, the nursing of non-offspring, is best documented in lions but reported in other group-living or colonial felid contexts, including domestic cat colonies. This overview surveys research on…

Even as predators, cats must avoid being killed, and anti-predator behaviour shapes their activity and space use. This overview surveys research on vigilance, refuge use, and avoidance in domestic and…

Cat domestication followed an unusual, largely commensal path, and this overview surveys research on the behavioural traits associated with it. It covers reduced fear and aggression toward humans, inc…

Kittens are altricial and pass through a rapid, well-characterised sequence of behavioural milestones. This overview surveys research on kitten development, from the early reliance on thermal and olfa…

Comparing the domestic cat with its wild ancestor illuminates how domestication has reshaped behaviour. This overview surveys research contrasting African and European wildcats with domestic cats in t…

The quality of the cat-human relationship depends on both the cat's and the owner's characteristics, and this overview surveys research linking feline personality to relationship outcomes. It covers h…

Beyond the mechanics of the flehmen response, felids use vomeronasal sampling to extract social information from scent marks. This overview surveys research on how cats assess reproductive status, ind…

Older cats can develop cognitive dysfunction syndrome, a decline analogous in some respects to human dementia. This overview surveys research on age-related changes in feline cognition and behaviour,…

The cognitive bias paradigm tests whether an animal in a negative affective state judges ambiguous cues more pessimistically, providing a window into emotion. This overview surveys research applying j…

Cognition has been studied far less in cats than in primates, birds, or dogs, but a coherent picture is emerging across the felid family. This overview synthesises research on object permanence, spati…

Several studies have tested how well cats exploit human-given cues, such as pointing, gazing, or tapping, to find hidden food in object-choice tasks. This overview surveys the range of cues cats can a…