🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

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…

The lion's mane is one of the most conspicuous ornaments among mammals, and research has explored what it advertises. This overview synthesizes experimental and observational work suggesting that mane…

Before they can win a pride, young male lions endure a nomadic phase after being evicted from their natal range. This overview synthesizes what is known about this risky period: bachelors roam widely,…

The puma has the largest latitudinal range of any wild land mammal in the Western Hemisphere, occupying habitats from boreal forest and western mountains to deserts, grasslands, swamps, and tropical j…

The Asiatic cheetah survives only as a tiny relict population in the deserts of Iran, the last of a subspecies that once ranged across southwest Asia and India. This overview synthesizes what is known…

Few wild populations have been studied as continuously as the lions of the Serengeti, where decades of records on known individuals have transformed understanding of the species. This overview synthes…

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…

Within their territories tigers select habitat features that aid stalking, provide shade, and offer water. This overview synthesizes telemetry and camera-trap studies showing that tigers favor dense c…

How often a tiger must kill depends on prey size, the cat's body mass, reproductive state, and competition at carcasses. This overview synthesizes GPS-cluster and observational studies estimating that…

Tigers are capable of killing very large prey, and their diet centers on medium to large ungulates wherever these are available. This overview synthesizes kill and scat studies showing that species su…

Where tigers and people share landscapes, conflict over livestock and occasional attacks on humans shapes both tiger survival and local attitudes. This overview synthesizes studies on the circumstance…

The tall-grass and riverine forest mosaic of the Terai along the Himalayan foothills supports some of the highest tiger densities on Earth. This overview reviews how the exceptional productivity of th…

The Sundarbans, a vast tidal mangrove forest straddling India and Bangladesh, hosts a tiger population unlike any other. This overview reviews how these tigers swim between islands, drink brackish or…

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,…

Tigers use a repertoire of calls, including powerful roars rich in low-frequency and infrasonic energy that carry far through forest. This overview synthesizes research on how these vocalizations adve…

Lion hunting success varies enormously with prey species, group size, habitat cover, time of day, and moon phase. This overview synthesizes field studies showing that lions exploit darkness and vegeta…

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 experiment played recordings of one or three roaring strangers to prides and measured how resident females responded. Lionesses were more cautious when outnumbered and more likely to approach whe…

McComb, K., Packer, C., Pusey, A. E. · Animal Behaviour · 1994

This early study documented how takeovers of prides by new male coalitions are followed by the death of dependent cubs, and how females then return to estrus and breed with the incoming males. By trac…

Bertram, B. C. R. · Journal of Zoology · 1975

Using GPS telemetry on jaguars in the seasonally flooded Pantanal of Brazil, this study quantified home ranges, movements, and the degree of spatial overlap among individuals. It revealed that jaguar…

Cavalcanti, S. M. C., Gese, E. M. · Journal of Mammalogy · 2009

George Schaller spent three years observing lions on the Serengeti plains and woodlands, producing the first comprehensive natural history of the species. By following recognizable individuals he docu…

Schaller, G. B. · University of Chicago Press · 1972

This influential synthesis explored why carnivores vary so much in sociality, from solitary cats to group-living species, linking social organization to the distribution of food in space and time. It…

Macdonald, D. W. · Nature · 1983

Based on radio-telemetry of tigers in the lowland forests and grasslands of Chitwan, Nepal, this study described how tigers partition space through a land-tenure system. Resident females held largely…

Sunquist, M. E. · Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology · 1981

Combining camera-trap density estimates with line-transect surveys of prey across multiple Indian reserves, this study demonstrated a strong relationship between the abundance of large ungulate prey a…

Karanth, K. U., Nichols, J. D., Kumar, N. S., Link, W. A., Hines, J. E. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2004

This influential synthesis argued that the loss of large apex consumers, including big cats and other top predators, is among humanity's most pervasive impacts on nature. Drawing on examples across ec…

Estes, J. A., Terborgh, J., Brashares, J. S., et al. · Science · 2011

Testing the long-held idea that lions live in groups to hunt large prey more efficiently, this study compared the per-capita food intake of females in groups of different sizes. The data showed that s…

Packer, C., Scheel, D., Pusey, A. E. · The American Naturalist · 1990

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