🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This study uncovered a general relationship between the population density of carnivores and the availability of their prey, showing that across species roughly the same amount of prey biomass support…

Carbone, C., Gittleman, J. L. · Science · 2002

This study in Nagarahole, southern India, examined how three large predators, the tiger, leopard, and dhole, partition a shared prey community. By analyzing kills and prey availability, the authors sh…

Karanth, K. U., Sunquist, M. E. · Journal of Animal Ecology · 2000

Leopards have perhaps the broadest diet of any large cat, recorded eating a vast array of species from large antelope to rodents, birds, reptiles, and invertebrates. This overview synthesizes scat and…

Conserving big cats in a human-dominated world depends on applying their ecology to the challenge of coexistence. This overview synthesizes how understanding prey requirements, ranging, dispersal, and…

In the mountains of Asia, common leopards, snow leopards, and tigers can occur along elevational gradients, partitioning the landscape by altitude and habitat. This overview synthesizes research on ho…

Big cats select habitat at multiple scales, balancing the need for prey, cover for stalking, water, and shelter against the risks posed by competitors and humans. This overview synthesizes research sh…

Most big cats organize their use of space through a land-tenure system in which residents hold home ranges advertised by scent and maintained partly through avoidance. This overview synthesizes the ge…

Leopards coexist with larger, dominant carnivores by avoiding them in space, time, and behavior. This overview synthesizes research showing how leopards select denser cover, shift activity to avoid pe…

Big cats not only compete for prey but kill one another, and intraguild predation shapes the structure of carnivore communities. This overview synthesizes research on how dominant cats such as lions a…

Leopards are flexible in their timing of activity, becoming more strictly nocturnal where humans and dominant competitors are present. This overview synthesizes camera-trap studies showing that leopar…

Leopard home-range size and density vary enormously, reflecting the species' adaptability. This overview synthesizes telemetry and camera-trap studies showing that leopards occupy small territories at…

Leopards often survive in small habitat fragments and human-dominated mosaics where other big cats vanish, but fragmentation still imposes costs. This overview synthesizes research on how leopard popu…

Leopards are remarkable among big cats for persisting in close proximity to dense human populations, including the edges of major cities. This overview synthesizes research, notably from India, on how…

In the rainforests of Central Africa and Southeast Asia, leopards occupy a very different niche from savanna populations. This overview synthesizes research on forest leopards, which hunt primates, du…

In the arid Kalahari, leopards survive with little surface water across vast, sparsely vegetated terrain. This overview synthesizes long-term observations of desert leopards showing how they range ove…

As the largest African cat, the lion exerts strong intraguild pressure on cheetahs and leopards. This overview synthesizes research on how lions kill cheetah cubs and steal kills, forcing cheetahs int…

Female leopards raise cubs alone, hiding them in dense cover and moving them between lairs to reduce the risk of detection by predators. This overview synthesizes research on leopard reproduction, inc…

Estimating how many big cats occupy an area is a central and challenging task in their ecology and conservation. This overview reviews the main methods, from individual-identification camera-trap capt…

In the rugged mountains of the Middle East and Central Asia, leopards persist as rare, threatened populations adapted to arid, rocky terrain. This overview synthesizes what is known about the Arabian…

Where several large cats share a landscape, they coexist by partitioning resources along axes of prey size, habitat, and activity. This overview synthesizes research across continents showing how tige…

The abundance of big cats is governed largely from the bottom up by the biomass of their prey. This overview synthesizes the strong, repeatedly demonstrated relationship between ungulate prey density…

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…

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…

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,…

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