🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Beyond individual illness, bovine tuberculosis may reshape lion populations and social behavior over time. This overview synthesizes research and modeling on how chronic TB reduces survival and reprod…

Detecting Mycobacterium bovis and related mycobacteria in wild carnivores is notoriously difficult, complicating both research and management. This overview surveys the diagnostic toolkit applied to f…

Jaguars and other Neotropical cats inhabit diverse tropical ecosystems where they encounter a wide array of pathogens and parasites, though their disease ecology remains less studied than that of Afri…

As conservation efforts seek to rewild felids and support natural range expansion, disease becomes a critical consideration. This overview surveys the disease dimensions of rewilding and range recover…

Small wild felids such as the Pallas cat, sand cat and various others have distinctive disease ecologies that are often poorly studied yet conservation-relevant. This overview surveys disease in small…

Felids living at the edges of cities, such as bobcats and mountain lions in California, face a distinctive disease landscape shaped by human activity. This overview surveys the disease ecology of urba…

Captive felids in zoos and sanctuaries require systematic disease surveillance both for their own health and as sentinels for emerging threats. This overview surveys health monitoring in captive cat c…

Captive cheetahs experience a striking array of diseases rarely seen at such rates in other felids, including Helicobacter gastritis, kidney disease, and severe coronavirus outbreaks. This overview su…

Lions are unusually social among cats, and their pride structure shapes how pathogens spread through populations. This overview surveys the interplay between lion social organization and disease trans…

Free-roaming and feral domestic cats, vastly more numerous than their wild relatives, act as a reservoir for pathogens that can spill into endangered felids. This overview surveys the suite of disease…

Because domestic dogs often act as the reservoir feeding canine distemper into wild carnivores, vaccinating dogs around protected areas has become a key conservation tool. This overview surveys the lo…

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic underscored that felids are susceptible to emerging coronaviruses, prompting renewed attention to the coronavirus host range in cats. This overview surveys the susceptibility o…

Tick-borne diseases are emerging and shifting in wild felids as tick distributions change and molecular tools reveal new pathogens. This overview surveys the changing landscape of tick-borne disease i…

Feline panleukopenia virus is exceptionally hardy, surviving in the environment for long periods, which shapes its epidemiology and spillover potential to wild felids. This overview surveys the virus’…

Cats, both domestic and wild, are the only definitive hosts in which Toxoplasma gondii completes sexual reproduction and sheds environmentally resistant oocysts. This overview surveys the ecology of t…

Beyond the pathogenic FIV and FeLV, felids carry feline foamy virus, a generally apathogenic retrovirus that nonetheless offers a useful marker of contact and transmission. This overview surveys felin…

Feline herpesvirus and calicivirus, the main agents of cat respiratory disease, circulate in domestic cats and can spill into wild felids, causing upper respiratory and oral disease. This overview sur…

African lions carry their own feline immunodeficiency virus, FIV-Ple, which exists as several deeply divergent lineages that often co-circulate within and among populations. This overview synthesizes…

Beyond bovine tuberculosis, felids can be affected by other mycobacteria, including the agents of feline leprosy that cause nodular skin disease. This overview surveys what is known about these atypic…

Feline leukemia virus is fundamentally a domestic-cat pathogen, yet it has crossed into endangered wild felids with lethal consequences. This overview surveys documented and suspected spillover events…

Feline panleukopenia virus, a parvovirus closely related to canine parvovirus, causes severe, often fatal disease and circulates readily among domestic cats, posing a spillover risk to wild felids. Th…

Fleas transmit a range of pathogens to felids, including Bartonella species responsible for cat-scratch disease, hemotropic mycoplasmas that cause anemia, and the plague bacterium. This overview surve…

The risk that domestic-cat pathogens reach wild felids and other wildlife scales with the density and distribution of free-roaming cats, especially near protected areas. This overview surveys research…

Surveys of the gut parasites of wild cats, typically based on fecal examination, provide a window into felid health, diet and environmental exposure. This overview surveys the common gastrointestinal…

Wild cats host a diverse array of helminths, including roundworms such as Toxocara and Toxascaris, tapeworms like Spirometra and Taenia, hookworms and lungworms, acquired largely through their prey. T…

Hemotropic mycoplasmas, formerly called Haemobartonella, attach to red blood cells and can cause infectious anemia in felids, with wild cats carrying these bacteria across many populations. This overv…

The diversity of immune genes, especially the major histocompatibility complex, strongly influences a population’s ability to resist infectious disease. This overview surveys research on felid immunog…

Effective conservation increasingly requires integrating disease information alongside genetic, demographic and habitat data in planning for felids. This overview surveys how disease data are incorpor…

Population bottlenecks that erode genetic diversity recur throughout felid history and interact powerfully with disease susceptibility. This overview surveys how bottlenecks, from the ancient cheetah…

Felids share landscapes with other carnivores, and pathogens frequently move among species within these guilds, shaping disease dynamics. This overview surveys interspecific transmission among carnivo…