🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This overview examines the evolutionary relationships of Miracinonyx and the now well-supported conclusion that its cheetah-like form arose through convergence rather than common ancestry with the tru…

This overview surveys the postcranial anatomy of Miracinonyx and the adaptations for high-speed running that earned it the cheetah-like label. Especially in Miracinonyx trumani, the limbs are elongate…

This overview examines the distinctive postcranial skeleton of Homotherium, whose elongated forelimbs, shorter hindlimbs, and digitigrade stance give it a sloping, hyena-like build very different from…

This overview surveys dental microwear texture analysis, a method that examines microscopic wear features on tooth surfaces to infer what an animal ate shortly before death. In fossil cats, the techni…

This overview examines one of the defining trends in felid evolution: the progressive loss and simplification of teeth from the relatively full dentition of Proailurus to the highly reduced tooth row…

This overview examines genetic and fossil evidence bearing on when the cave lion lineage split from the ancestors of modern lions. Ancient DNA studies estimate that Panthera spelaea diverged from the…

This overview reviews how incremental growth lines preserved in sabertooth tooth enamel and dentine are used to reconstruct the developmental schedule of the famous canines. Like tree rings, these mic…

This overview surveys experimental and computational studies that test how sabertooth canines performed when penetrating flesh and bone. Researchers have used physical models, replica teeth, and simul…

This overview surveys how finite-element analysis transformed understanding of sabertooth killing mechanics by revealing an apparent paradox: animals like Smilodon had skulls poorly suited to withstan…

This overview examines the exceptionally powerful forelimbs of Smilodon and what they reveal about how the cat subdued prey. Compared with similarly sized living felids, Smilodon shows thickened limb…

This overview surveys the bony chin flanges, or mandibular flanges, found in many sabertooth carnivores, including barbourofelids and the marsupial-relative Thylacosmilus, and in reduced form in some…

This overview surveys efforts to sequence nuclear and mitochondrial genomes from Homotherium and what they reveal about the scimitar cat's place among felids. Ancient DNA recovered from Pleistocene sp…

This overview surveys the distribution of the American lion across Pleistocene North America, where its fossils are known largely from areas south of the great continental ice sheets, extending into p…

This overview focuses on a specific line of argument about sabertooth behaviour: that severely injured Smilodon individuals survived long enough for their wounds to heal, which some researchers read a…

This overview reviews what the preserved hyoid bones of Smilodon suggest about the sounds the sabertooth may have made. In living cats, the structure of the hyoid apparatus correlates with whether a s…

This overview examines the distinctive front teeth of Homotherium and what they reveal about its killing technique. Scimitar-toothed cats possess a strongly arched, procumbent incisor arcade set forwa…

This overview surveys what stable isotope and dental studies reveal about the diet of Panthera atrox. By analysing carbon and nitrogen values in the bone collagen of American lions alongside contempor…

This overview surveys stable isotope studies of cave lion diet, which use carbon and nitrogen values in bone collagen to identify the prey of Panthera spelaea across Ice Age Eurasia and Beringia. Seve…

This overview surveys how isotopic and contextual evidence has been used to test the long-standing idea that the scimitar-toothed cat Homotherium specialized in hunting young proboscideans. At sites s…

This overview examines how stable isotope studies reveal the way coexisting Ice Age predators divided up prey and habitat. By comparing carbon and nitrogen values in the bone collagen of species such…

This overview surveys how stable isotope studies have been used to identify the prey of Smilodon at sites such as Rancho La Brea. By comparing carbon and nitrogen values in sabertooth bone collagen wi…

This overview synthesizes the striking pattern by which a sabertooth body plan evolved repeatedly and independently across unrelated lineages of predatory mammals. True cats (machairodonts), nimravids…

This overview addresses how sabertooths like Smilodon achieved the enormous gape needed to clear their elongated canines and apply them to prey. Estimates suggest the jaws could open to roughly twice…

This overview reviews evidence that the scimitar-toothed cat Homotherium latidens persisted in Europe far later than once believed. A well-known mandible dredged from the floor of the North Sea, dated…

This overview examines how the limb proportions of Smilodon distinguish it from pursuit predators and point to an ambush hunting style. Compared with cursorial carnivores built for speed, the sabertoo…

This overview examines the possible ecological connection between the cave lion and the cave bear, two emblematic Ice Age mammals whose extinctions both fall in the latest Pleistocene. Isotopic and co…

This overview examines the remarkable dispersal history of the lion lineage, which spread from an African and Eurasian heartland across the Northern Hemisphere during the Pleistocene. Cave lions, Pant…

This overview reviews what the skeletons of the earliest cats, especially Proailurus and early Pseudaelurus-grade forms, reveal about their locomotion and likely habits. Features such as relatively lo…

This overview focuses on what Paleolithic depictions and frozen specimens suggest about whether male cave lions had manes and how the animals behaved socially. Cave art rarely shows the prominent mane…

This overview examines mesowear and other gross tooth-wear approaches as applied to extinct cats, which assess the cumulative shape and rounding of cusps to infer long-term dietary abrasiveness and ca…