🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

The sand cat is a small felid of the deserts of North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, with adaptations for life in extreme arid heat. This overview surveys its placement within the Felis li…

Pallas's cat, or the manul, is a small, densely furred cat of the Central Asian steppe whose phylogenetic placement was clarified by molecular data linking it to the leopard cat lineage. This overview…

The jaguarundi is an unusually shaped small cat of the Americas, with an elongated body and uniform coat, whose molecular placement revealed it as a close relative of the puma and cheetah within the p…

The South China tiger, considered the ancestral or stem population of modern tigers by some analyses, is likely extinct in the wild and survives only in a small, intensively managed captive population…

The end of the Pleistocene saw the loss of many large cats, including sabertooths, cave lions, American lions, and the American cheetah, as part of the broader megafaunal extinction. This overview sur…

Beyond color, cats vary in coat length and texture, from longhaired Persians to the curly Rex breeds and the nearly hairless Sphynx, each with an identified genetic basis. This overview surveys the va…

Several popular domestic cat breeds were created by crossing house cats with wild felid species, including the Bengal from the Asian leopard cat, the Savannah from the serval, and the Chausie from the…

Several striking morphological variants in domestic cats have known genetic bases, including the taillessness of the Manx cat and extra toes in polydactyl cats. This overview surveys the discovery tha…

The Chinese mountain cat, a poorly known felid endemic to the Tibetan Plateau region, has been the subject of debate over whether it is a distinct species, a wildcat subspecies, and whether it contrib…

The Caspian tiger of Central and Western Asia went extinct in the twentieth century, but genetic analysis of museum specimens revealed a close relationship to the surviving Amur tiger, suggesting the…

The serval and the caracal are medium-sized African cats of the caracal lineage, both relatively widespread but facing localized pressures. This overview surveys their genetic relationships within the…

Beyond genes, the architecture of felid genomes, including repetitive elements, transposons, and structural variants, shapes evolution and complicates assembly. This overview surveys the composition o…

Genomic erosion refers to the cumulative loss of genetic diversity and accumulation of harmful variation that accompanies population decline, and cats provide some of its clearest examples. This overv…

The snow leopard inhabits the high mountains of Central and South Asia and is the most basal or near-basal member of the genus Panthera in many analyses. This overview surveys genomic studies examinin…

The Iberian lynx became the world's most endangered cat, falling to fewer than one hundred individuals before an intensive recovery effort. This overview surveys genomic studies revealing that the spe…

Besides the white tiger, captive tigers occasionally display a golden or strawberry coloration with pale orange fur and faint cinnamon stripes, as well as theoretical combinations such as the snow-whi…

Cats are hosts to feline immunodeficiency virus, feline leukemia virus, and other pathogens whose long association has left marks on both host and viral genomes. This overview surveys how these viruse…

For much of the twentieth century, cat classification rested on coat patterns, skull morphology, and geography, producing many poorly supported species and subspecies. This overview surveys how molecu…

Tiger taxonomy has long been contested, with traditional schemes recognizing up to nine subspecies, several now extinct, while some genetic analyses and the Cat Classification Task Force proposed coll…

Hybridization between cat species, both in captivity and occasionally in the wild, has played a larger role in felid evolution than once appreciated. This overview surveys the spectrum from ancient in…

The European wildcat faces a genetic threat from interbreeding with free-ranging domestic cats, which can erode the wild population's distinct genome through introgression. This overview surveys genet…

Small or isolated cat populations frequently show the hallmarks of inbreeding depression, including reduced fertility, abnormal sperm, congenital defects, weakened immunity, and elevated juvenile mort…

Because modern cats radiated rapidly, different genes often disagree about the branching order of species, a phenomenon known as incomplete lineage sorting that arises when ancestral polymorphisms per…

The global distribution of cats was shaped by repeated intercontinental migrations across land bridges as sea levels fluctuated. This overview surveys how molecular phylogenies reconstructed at least…

The bobcat, a widespread and adaptable North American cat, has become a model for studying how roads, development, and habitat fragmentation shape gene flow in carnivores. This overview surveys geneti…

Cats are famously indifferent to sweetness, and genetics revealed why: they carry a pseudogenized sweet-taste receptor gene that no longer produces a functional receptor. This overview surveys the dis…

The major histocompatibility complex encodes immune-recognition molecules whose diversity is crucial for resisting pathogens, and its depletion is a key concern in inbred cat populations. This overvie…

Before genome sequencing became routine, microsatellites, short tandem repeats scattered through the genome, were the workhorse markers of felid population and forensic genetics. This overview surveys…

Mitochondrial DNA, with its maternal inheritance, high copy number, and relatively fast evolution, was central to the first molecular phylogenies and phylogeographic studies of cats. This overview sur…

Estimating when cat lineages diverged requires calibrating molecular substitution rates against the fossil record, a process fraught with uncertainty when fossils are sparse. This overview surveys how…