🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

The IUCN Cat Specialist Group convened a Cat Classification Task Force to reconcile decades of conflicting felid taxonomy with modern genetic and morphological evidence. The resulting consensus recogn…

Andrew C. Kitchener, Christiane Breitenmoser-Wursten, Eduardo Eizirik, et al. (Cat Classification Task Force) · Cat News Special Issue · 2017

This study generated a high-quality genome of the leopard and compared it across the dietary spectrum, contrasting strict carnivores like cats with omnivores and herbivores to identify the genomic bas…

Soonok Kim, Yun Sung Cho, Jong Bhak, et al. · Genome Biology · 2016

This study extended earlier work on feline melanism by surveying agouti signaling protein and melanocortin-1 receptor variation across wild cat species, including the leopard. The authors characterize…

Alexsandra Schneider, Eduardo Eizirik, et al. · PLoS ONE · 2012

The Amur leopard, surviving in the Russian Far East and adjacent China, is one of the rarest cats, having dropped to a few dozen individuals. This overview surveys genetic studies documenting its very…

The fishing cat is a wetland specialist of South and Southeast Asia, increasingly threatened by the loss and fragmentation of marshes and mangroves. This overview surveys the limited but growing genet…

Comparative and population genomics allow researchers to find genes shaped by natural selection in cats, revealing the molecular basis of their predatory adaptations. This overview surveys the methods…

Environmental DNA, the genetic material that animals shed into their surroundings, offers a powerful new way to detect elusive cats without observing them directly. This overview surveys how environme…

In many cats, one sex disperses farther than the other, with males typically moving while females remain near their natal range, a pattern that leaves distinct genetic footprints. This overview survey…

The clouded leopard, long treated as a single species, was shown by genetic and morphological analysis to comprise two distinct species: the mainland clouded leopard and the Sunda clouded leopard of B…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Snow leopards inhabit remote, rugged mountains where direct observation is nearly impossible, making noninvasive genetics essential for studying them. This overview surveys how scat-based DNA analysis…

Because most wild cats are elusive and difficult to capture, conservation geneticists increasingly rely on noninvasive samples such as scat, hair, and shed cells to obtain DNA without handling the ani…

Zoos and breeding programs maintain studbooks to manage the genetics of captive cat populations, aiming to retain diversity and avoid inbreeding across generations. This overview surveys how pedigree…

Although the snow leopard was traditionally treated as a single undivided species, genetic studies using noninvasive samples have proposed dividing it into several geographic subspecies or management…

Since the first lightly sequenced domestic cat genome, feline genomics has advanced to highly contiguous, chromosome-level assemblies for the domestic cat and an expanding set of wild species. This ov…

The leopard is the most widely distributed big cat, ranging across Africa and Asia, and genetic studies have refined its subspecies framework. This overview surveys evidence that African leopards form…

Modern cats are divided into eight monophyletic lineages: the Panthera lineage (lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, snow leopards, clouded leopards), the bay cat lineage, the caracal lineage, the ocelot…

The ability to roar distinguishes the genus Panthera and is tied to specialized anatomy of the larynx and a flexible hyoid apparatus, while smaller cats purr instead. This overview surveys the anatomi…

Black jaguars, often called black panthers, occur naturally within jaguar populations and result from a dominant mutation in the melanocortin-1 receptor gene, distinct from the recessive melanism of t…

The leopard cat lineage of Asia includes the widespread leopard cat, the fishing cat, the flat-headed cat, and the rusty-spotted cat, along with the related Pallas's cat. This overview surveys the gen…

Genetic tools are increasingly used to combat the illegal trade in cats and their parts, from tiger bones and skins to confiscated live animals. This overview surveys how forensic genetics assigns sei…

The big cats of the genus Panthera proved historically difficult to resolve because of rapid speciation and conflicting gene trees. This study assembled a large multilocus supermatrix and applied both…

Brian W. Davis, Gang Li, William J. Murphy · Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution · 2010

This study produced the first reference genome of the tiger, sequenced from an Amur tiger, and compared it with newly generated lion and snow leopard genome data. The authors identified genetic signat…

Yun Sung Cho, Jong Bhak, et al. · Nature Communications · 2013