🧬 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 recovered mitochondrial genomes from the extinct scimitar-toothed cat Homotherium using ancient DNA, including a specimen from the permafrost, to place the sabertooths relative to living ca…

Johanna L. A. Paijmans, Michael Hofreiter, Ross Barnett, et al. · Current Biology · 2017

Using genome-wide data, this study showed that the felid family tree is not a simple bifurcating set of clean splits but is laced with signals of ancient interspecific hybridization. The authors docum…

Gang Li, Brian W. Davis, Eduardo Eizirik, William J. Murphy · Genome Research · 2016

Complementing maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, Y-chromosome markers trace paternal lineages and reveal male-specific patterns of dispersal and mating in cats. This overview surveys how feline Y…

Beyond confounding phylogenies, introgression can transfer beneficial alleles between species, a process termed adaptive introgression. This overview surveys evidence in cats that gene flow during the…

Smilodon, the famous sabertoothed cat of the Americas, is known from abundant fossils such as those at the La Brea tar pits, but its DNA has been difficult to recover from warm-climate deposits. This…

Recovering DNA from extinct cats and historical museum specimens requires specialized techniques to cope with degraded, fragmented, and contaminated genetic material. This overview surveys how researc…

The cat family is notable for an unusually conserved karyotype, with most species sharing a similar chromosome number and arrangement that has changed little over the family's history. This overview s…

Complete mitochondrial genomes have been sequenced for most cat species, providing a standardized dataset for phylogenetics, phylogeography, and species identification. This overview surveys the assem…

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…

Across the cat family, similar coat phenotypes such as melanism, pale or white morphs, and spotted-to-striped pattern shifts have arisen repeatedly in different lineages. This overview surveys the evi…

Conservation managers must decide which populations to treat as separate units for protection, breeding, and translocation, and genetics provides the primary evidence. This overview surveys the concep…

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…

Effective population size, the number of individuals genetically contributing to the next generation, is often far smaller than the census count and is a key predictor of how quickly a population lose…

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…

Small populations accumulate deleterious mutations, the genetic load, but sustained inbreeding can also expose and remove the most harmful recessive variants through a process called purging. This ove…

Wildlife corridors aim to reconnect fragmented cat populations, and genetics provides a direct test of whether they actually restore gene flow. This overview surveys how landscape and population genet…

Genetic rescue refers to deliberately introducing individuals from another population to boost the fitness of a small, inbred population through new genetic variation. This overview surveys the concep…

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 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 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 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…

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…

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…

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…