🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

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…

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…

Long-term study of marked lions has shown that many animals carry antibodies to canine distemper virus without dying, raising questions about when infection is lethal. This overview surveys research d…

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…

Beyond the well-known feline immunodeficiency and leukemia viruses, felid genomes carry endogenous retroviruses and other retroelements that record ancient infections. This overview surveys the spectr…

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…

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…

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…

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…

The last wild Asiatic lions, confined to the Gir Forest of India, form a small, genetically depleted population whose disease exposure draws particular concern. This overview surveys what is known and…

High-throughput sequencing has opened a new era of virus discovery, allowing researchers to catalog the viromes of wild felids without prior knowledge of which pathogens to seek. This overview surveys…

Mathematical models help predict how diseases spread through felid populations and whether outbreaks will fizzle or explode. This overview surveys epidemiological modeling applied to wild cats, from e…

Molecular tools have revolutionized the study of how pathogens spread among carnivores, including felids, by reading the genetic signatures of viruses and parasites. This overview surveys the use of m…

Bovine tuberculosis in African wildlife is sustained by a community of hosts, with African buffalo as the principal maintenance population and lions, kudu, warthogs and others variously infected. This…

Canine distemper in the Serengeti circulates not in a single species but across a community of carnivores including domestic dogs, jackals, hyenas and big cats. This overview examines research untangl…

Careful necropsy and pathological examination underpin much of what is known about causes of death and disease in wild felids. This overview surveys the role of standardized post-mortem investigation…

Body condition and nutrition strongly influence how wild felids cope with infection, with stress and malnutrition often tipping tolerated pathogens into disease. This overview surveys the link between…

Oral vaccination, delivered through baits, has been used to immunize wildlife reservoirs against rabies and is considered for other diseases, with indirect benefits for exposed felids. This overview s…

The concept of pathogen pollution describes the human-mediated introduction of pathogens into new host populations, a recurring driver of disease in wild felids. This overview surveys how activities s…

A felid’s diet largely determines its parasite burden, as many worms and protozoa are acquired by eating infected prey. This overview surveys how prey-mediated transmission shapes the parasitic fauna…

Vaccines against feline immunodeficiency virus exist for domestic cats but raise complex questions when considered for wild felids harboring their own endemic lentiviruses. This overview surveys the i…

Rabies, an almost invariably fatal lyssavirus infection, occasionally strikes wild felids exposed through bites from infected dogs, jackals or other wildlife reservoirs. This overview surveys document…

Effective rabies control depends on surveillance that spans the carnivore community, since the virus circulates among dogs, jackals, mongooses, foxes and bat reservoirs that all interface with felids.…

A central question in distemper ecology is how a virus historically associated with dogs repeatedly jumps into cats. This overview surveys research on the molecular basis of canine distemper virus hos…

Despite decades of study, major gaps remain in understanding disease in wild felids, particularly for less-studied species and regions. This overview surveys the priorities and unanswered questions in…

Sarcoptic mange, caused by the burrowing mite Sarcoptes scabiei, affects a wide range of carnivores and occasionally strikes large felids, producing hair loss, crusting, intense itching and debilitati…

Many felids scavenge as well as hunt, and feeding on carcasses exposes them to pathogens including anthrax, bovine tuberculosis and parasites concentrated in dead and diseased animals. This overview s…

Interpreting antibody tests in wild felids is complicated by cross-reactivity, where antibodies to one pathogen react with tests for a related agent, blurring diagnoses. This overview surveys the diag…