🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This systematic study examined the North American species long grouped under Pseudaelurus, the assemblage of stem cats that bridged the earliest felids and the later radiation of modern cats and saber…

Tom Rothwell · American Museum Novitates · 2003

This authoritative review chapter synthesizes the evolutionary history and phylogeny of the cat family, integrating fossil evidence with molecular data to present a comprehensive picture of how cats d…

Lars Werdelin, Nobuyuki Yamaguchi, Warren E. Johnson, Stephen J. O'Brien · Biology and Conservation of Wild Felids (Oxford University Press) · 2010

This overview surveys Hyperailurictis, the name applied to the North American Pseudaelurus-grade cats that represent the first true felids to colonize the continent after the cat gap. Arriving from Eu…

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 Styriofelis and related small Miocene cats, sometimes also referred to under names such as Miopanthera, that are placed near the base of the Felinae following the breakup of the…

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 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 surveys evidence that the family Felidae originated in Eurasia, likely in Asia, before dispersing repeatedly across the world. Combining the fossil record of early cats such as Proailuru…

This overview surveys the Pseudaelurus-grade cats, a diverse assemblage of stem felids that flourished across Eurasia and North America during the Miocene and bridged the dawn cat Proailurus and the l…

This overview examines the cat gap, a roughly seven-million-year interval in the Oligocene and early Miocene during which true cats are essentially absent from the North American fossil record, even t…

This overview surveys how and when true cats first reached North America, ending the long cat gap. The earliest felids evolved in the Old World, and their descendants crossed the Bering land bridge du…

This overview examines the deep evolutionary divergence within Felidae between the Felinae, the conical-toothed cats that include all living species, and the Machairodontinae, the extinct sabertooths.…