🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Leopards maintain their land-tenure system through scent marking, scrapes, and vocalizations that let solitary individuals space themselves and find mates. This overview synthesizes research on how le…

Snow leopards shift their use of the mountains seasonally, often following the movements of their prey up and down the slopes. This overview synthesizes tracking studies showing how snow leopards desc…

Across the high mountains of Asia, snow leopards and pastoralists overlap, and depredation on livestock drives conflict central to the cat's conservation. This overview synthesizes studies on the patt…

Snow leopards inhabit the high mountains of Central and South Asia, selecting steep, broken terrain that aids stalking and escape. This overview synthesizes telemetry and survey studies showing that s…

GPS collaring has transformed understanding of snow leopard spatial ecology, revealing far larger home ranges than earlier studies suggested. This overview synthesizes tracking work, notably from Mong…

Snow leopards depend heavily on mountain ungulates, especially blue sheep and ibex, across their range. This overview synthesizes diet studies showing that these wild caprids form the core of the snow…

Snow leopards are among the hardest big cats to count, and their global population remains poorly known. This overview synthesizes the methodological challenges of surveying a cryptic, low-density cat…

Beyond killing prey, big cats shape ecosystems through the fear they inspire, altering where and how prey forage. This overview synthesizes research on the landscape of fear, in which the risk of pred…

The leopard has the widest distribution of any wild cat, occupying habitats from rainforest and savanna to desert, mountains, and the edges of cities. This overview synthesizes the ecological traits b…

Across much of Asia tigers and leopards occur together, and their coexistence is mediated by differences in prey size and behavior. This overview synthesizes research showing that leopards shift towar…

In many Asian forests tigers share the landscape with leopards and packs of dholes, the Asiatic wild dog, forming a guild that partitions prey and space. This overview synthesizes research on how thes…

The snow leopard's range spans a dozen countries across the mountains of Asia, making transboundary cooperation essential. This overview synthesizes how conservation has shifted toward large, connecte…

Leopards famously haul their kills into trees, a behavior with clear ecological logic. This overview synthesizes research showing that caching prey in trees protects it from kleptoparasitism by lions,…

Cheetahs naturally occur at low densities and require large areas, a consequence of competition, prey, and their hunting strategy. This overview synthesizes research showing that suppression by lions…

This comprehensive reference compiled the biology, ecology, and conservation status of all the world's wild cat species, from the great roaring cats to the smallest felids. Drawing together field stud…

Sunquist, M. E., Sunquist, F. C. · University of Chicago Press · 2002