🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

A survey of how jaguars and pumas, the two large cats of the Neotropics, coexist across much of their shared range by partitioning prey, space and time. Jaguars generally take larger prey, including p…

A survey of how researchers locate and interpret felid kill sites and the biases that affect the resulting estimates of kill rate and prey composition. Field investigation of GPS clusters, snow-tracki…

A survey of how darkness and the lunar cycle influence the hunting success and behavior of largely nocturnal cats. Many felids hunt more successfully on dark nights when reduced visibility favors the…

An overview of how the loss of large cats such as lions, tigers and pumas can unleash smaller predators with cascading consequences for biodiversity. When apex felids decline, the intermediate carnivo…

A survey of how a cat's metabolic needs and prey size determine how often it must kill. Larger felids require more total energy but extract it from larger carcasses, so kill frequency scales with the…

A survey of how cats influence prey populations through fear and disturbance rather than direct killing. Risk effects include reduced foraging, heightened vigilance, altered habitat use, physiological…

An overview of how the prey a cat takes changes as it grows, learns to hunt and gains the size and strength to subdue larger prey. Young felids first depend on prey provided by their mother, then prac…

A survey of how felids exploit the seasonal pulse of newborn ungulates, a period of high vulnerability that can dominate annual recruitment losses. During calving and fawning seasons, abundant, hidden…

An overview of the behavioral defenses ungulates and other prey deploy against felid predators, from vigilance scanning to alarm signaling and habitat avoidance. Because cats are stealthy ambush hunte…

A survey of how big cats process and consume their kills, and why handling time matters for kill-rate estimation and competition. Larger carcasses take longer to consume and force predators to remain…

A survey of how cougar predation can threaten small and recovering populations of desert and mountain bighorn sheep. Although bighorn are not preferred prey, individual pumas can specialize on sheep,…

A survey of the predator-prey relationship between pumas and guanacos in the steppe and mountains of Patagonia, where the guanaco is the puma's main native prey. Pumas are major predators of guanacos,…

An overview of the central predator-prey relationship between cougars and mule deer, the staple prey across much of the western United States. Puma density tends to track deer abundance, and puma pred…

A survey of how pumas create spatial gradients of perceived risk that alter where and how their ungulate prey forage. Because pumas are ambush predators favoring cover and terrain that aids stalking,…

An overview comparing the two principal ways of determining what cats eat, analysis of prey remains in scats and investigation of kill sites, and their complementary strengths and biases. Scat analysi…

An overview of how much carrion features in the diets of cats traditionally viewed as pure hunters. While felids are generally more reliant on fresh kills than canids or hyaenids, many will scavenge o…

An overview of how the prey cats select shifts through the year with prey vulnerability, migration, birth pulses and weather. Many felids exploit seasonal ungulate calving and fawning peaks, when abun…

An overview of the long-debated tendency of cats to kill the young, old, sick and injured disproportionately, and what it implies for predation impact. If predators chiefly remove individuals with low…

An overview comparing the hunting effectiveness of solitary felids with the cooperative hunting of lions, addressing why most cats hunt alone. Solitary ambush hunting suits stalking predators that tar…

An overview of how ambush felids select hunting habitat to minimize the distance over which they must close on prey undetected. Because capture success drops sharply with the length of the final rush,…

An overview of documented cases in which cats kill more prey than they can eat, extending Kruuk's classic analysis to felids. Surplus killing in cats typically occurs when normal prey escape responses…

An overview of how large cats can structure ecosystems from the top down, with effects rippling through herbivores to vegetation and beyond. By killing and frightening herbivores, apex felids such as…

DeVault, Rhodes and Shivik synthesized the neglected ecology of carrion use, arguing that scavenging is far more pervasive and important than traditionally recognized and that most carnivores, includi…

DeVault, T.L., Rhodes, O.E. & Shivik, J.A. · Oikos · 2003

Brown, Laundre and Gurung laid the theoretical foundation for fear-driven predator-prey ecology, integrating optimal foraging theory and game theory to show how prey trade food intake against safety.…

Brown, J.S., Laundre, J.W. & Gurung, M. · Journal of Mammalogy · 1999

A decade after naming the concept, Laundre, Hernandez and Ripple reviewed how the landscape of fear had matured into a framework for understanding nonconsumptive predator effects. They synthesized evi…

Laundre, J.W., Hernandez, L. & Ripple, W.J. · The Open Ecology Journal · 2010

Prugh and colleagues synthesized global evidence that the worldwide decline of apex predators has triggered widespread increases in mid-sized carnivores, with far-reaching ecological and economic cons…

Prugh, L.R., Stoner, C.J., Epps, C.W., Bean, W.T. et al. · BioScience · 2009

Estes and a large group of coauthors synthesized evidence that the loss of apex consumers, including big cats, is among humanity's most pervasive influences on nature. The review marshaled cases acros…

Estes, J.A., Terborgh, J., Brashares, J.S. et al. · Science · 2011

Wilmers and colleagues showed that reintroduced wolves in Yellowstone act as ecosystem benefactors by providing a steady, more evenly distributed supply of carrion to scavengers, buffering them agains…

Wilmers, C.C., Crabtree, R.L., Smith, D.W., Murphy, K.M. & Getz, W.M. · Journal of Animal Ecology · 2003

Sunquist and Sunquist's comprehensive reference compiles the natural history, ecology and behavior of all wild felid species, with extensive treatment of diet, prey selection, hunting modes and predat…

Sunquist, M. & Sunquist, F. · University of Chicago Press · 2002

This paper introduced and named the landscape of fear concept, arguing that prey perceive their habitat as a spatially varying map of predation risk that shapes where and how they forage. Using elk an…

Laundre, J.W., Hernandez, L. & Altendorf, K.B. · Canadian Journal of Zoology · 2001