🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This study estimated body mass across the species of Smilodon using regression relationships between skeletal dimensions and body weight in living felids. The analysis confirmed that the South America…

Per Christiansen, John M. Harris · Journal of Morphology · 2005

This study recovered complete mitochondrial genomes from the dirk-toothed Smilodon and the scimitar-toothed Homotherium, allowing a genetic test of how these iconic sabertooths relate to one another a…

Johanna L. A. Paijmans, Ross Barnett, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, et al. · Current Biology · 2017

This study described Panthera blytheae, a newly recognized fossil cat from the Tibetan Himalaya that represents the oldest known member of the pantherine lineage, the group containing all living big c…

Z. Jack Tseng, Xiaoming Wang, Graham J. Slater, Gary T. Takeuchi, Qiang Li, Juan Liu, Guangpu Xie · Proceedings of the Royal Society B · 2014

This study used ancient and modern DNA to reconstruct the evolutionary relationships and population history of lions, including the extinct American lion and Eurasian cave lion. The genetic data resol…

Ross Barnett, Beth Shapiro, Ian Barnes, Simon Y. W. Ho, Joachim Burger, Nobuyuki Yamaguchi, et al. · Molecular Ecology · 2009

This work measured carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in bone collagen from Rancho La Brea mammals, including the predators Smilodon and Panthera atrox alongside their herbivore prey. The isotopic si…

Joan Brenner Coltrain, John M. Harris, Thure E. Cerling, James R. Ehleringer, et al. · Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology · 2004

This overview surveys Acinonyx pardinensis, a large extinct cheetah that ranged across Eurasia during the Pliocene and Pleistocene. Considerably bigger than the living cheetah, sometimes approaching t…

This overview surveys Machairodus and its later, larger relative Amphimachairodus, big scimitar-toothed cats that dominated late Miocene predator guilds across Eurasia, Africa, and North America. Thes…

This overview describes Natural Trap Cave in Wyoming, a deep sinkhole that acted as a pitfall for Pleistocene animals and accumulated a rich fossil assemblage including the American lion, the cheetah-…

This overview surveys Panthera gombaszoegensis, an extinct big cat of the Pleistocene of Europe and western Asia often nicknamed the European jaguar because of similarities to the living jaguar. Known…

This overview surveys the taxonomy of the Eurasian cave lion and its immediate ancestors. The classic Late Pleistocene cave lion is usually called Panthera spelaea, while larger, earlier Middle Pleist…

This overview examines Proailurus, widely regarded as the earliest true cat, known principally from the late Oligocene and early Miocene of Europe, including the famous Quercy fissure fillings of Fran…

This overview surveys the disappearance of numerous large cats, including Smilodon, Homotherium, the American lion, the cave lion, and Miracinonyx, as part of the broader late Quaternary megafaunal ex…

This overview examines how body size influenced which carnivores survived the end-Pleistocene extinctions and which, like the great cats, did not. Large predators tend to have smaller populations, low…

This overview surveys what skeletal evidence reveals about the body size of the cave lion and the degree of size difference between the sexes. Panthera spelaea was a large cat, generally exceeding the…

This overview examines the body size of Panthera atrox, frequently cited as one of the largest cats ever to have lived. Reconstructions based on its robust skeleton suggest it exceeded the modern Afri…

This overview surveys efforts to reconstruct the coat colour and appearance of the cave lion using frozen cubs and ancient DNA. The preserved fur of permafrost specimens provides direct evidence of pe…

This overview examines studies of genetic diversity and population structure within the cave lion, based on ancient DNA from specimens spanning the species' range and time depth. Such analyses have re…

This overview examines depictions of cave lions in Upper Paleolithic art, most famously the powerful panel of lions at Chauvet Cave in France, along with engravings and figurines from across Ice Age E…

This overview examines why reconstructing the relationships among the living big cats has proven difficult, with different genes and analyses sometimes yielding conflicting trees. The lion, leopard, a…

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 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 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 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 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 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 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…