🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This study compiled and compared estimated bite forces across many large carnivorous mammals, both living and extinct, to test how bite mechanics relate to predatory behaviour and to predict the habit…

Stephen Wroe, Colin McHenry, Jeffrey Thomason · Proceedings of the Royal Society B · 2005

This study quantified variation in skull and lower-jaw shape across living and extinct cats to understand the patterns and constraints governing felid cranial evolution. Using morphometric analysis of…

Per Christiansen · PLoS ONE · 2008

This study used geometric morphometrics to chart how skull shape evolved across sabertooth cats and their conical-toothed relatives. By quantifying cranial landmarks in many felid species, the authors…

Graham J. Slater, Blaire Van Valkenburgh · Paleobiology · 2008

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 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 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 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 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…

This overview reviews the quantitative methods palaeontologists use to estimate the body mass of extinct cats such as Smilodon, Homotherium, and Panthera atrox. Because soft tissue is not preserved, r…

This overview surveys the stable isotope techniques used to reconstruct the diets of extinct cats. Carbon isotopes in bone and tooth collagen and enamel record whether prey fed on plants using differe…

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 examines the central role of the Bering land bridge in the history of cats, serving as a recurrent corridor for felid movement between Asia and North America. The survey reviews how lowe…

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 surveys evidence on where and when the Panthera lineage, the genus that includes lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, and snow leopards, first arose. Molecular phylogenies place the diverge…

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.…

This overview surveys the emerging use of zinc isotopes in tooth enamel as a tool for reconstructing the trophic level and diet of fossil cats. Unlike collagen-based carbon and nitrogen analysis, whic…

This influential book provides a comprehensive illustrated survey of the cat family and its extinct members, combining scientific synthesis with detailed reconstructions of fossil felids and their sab…

Alan Turner, Mauricio Anton · Columbia University Press · 1997

This landmark study used molecular genetics to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the cat family, resolving the relationships among all living felids and the timing of their diversification. The…

Warren E. Johnson, Eduardo Eizirik, Jill Pecon-Slattery, William J. Murphy, Agostinho Antunes, Emma Teeling, Stephen J. O'Brien · Science · 2006