🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

An overview of how leopards coexist with dominant tigers in Asian forests by partitioning prey size, space and activity. Where tigers are abundant, leopards tend to take smaller prey, shift toward are…

An overview of how resident lions respond to the dramatic seasonal pulses of migratory wildebeest and zebra that pass through their territories. Because lions are territorial and cannot follow the mig…

A survey of the predator-prey relationship between lions and African buffalo, a preferred large prey whose size and defensive behavior make it both rewarding and dangerous to hunt. Lions, especially m…

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 the competitive relationship between Canada lynx and coyotes, both of which prey on snowshoe hares across much of the boreal forest. During hare highs the two predators overlap heavily…

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 leopards, as widespread mid-to-large felids, suppress smaller carnivores through killing, kleptoparasitism and fear. Across Africa and Asia leopards kill and displace jackals, caracals…

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 Canada lynx populations rise and fall in response to snowshoe hare abundance, the numerical-response half of the famous cycle. As hares increase, lynx reproduction and kitten surviv…

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…

An overview of how energetic costs and benefits shape the prey sizes big cats prefer to hunt. Optimal foraging predicts that predators target prey large enough to yield a high energy return per kill y…

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 how the scent of felid predators alone can suppress prey foraging, movement and reproduction, demonstrating nonconsumptive effects without any direct attack. Prey detect chemical cues o…

A survey of the strong, general relationship between the abundance of prey and the density of the carnivores that depend on them, a cornerstone of predator ecology. Across species and systems, predato…

A survey of the minimum prey abundance large cats need to maintain viable populations and why prey depletion is a leading cause of felid decline. Because predator density scales with prey biomass, the…

An overview of how the loss of large ungulate prey to human hunting hollows out tiger habitat even where forest cover remains, producing empty forests that cannot support tigers. Because tigers requir…

A survey of the anti-predator escape behaviors prey use once detected or attacked by cats and how they determine the outcome of a hunt. Prey employ rapid acceleration, unpredictable zig-zagging, stott…

An overview of why island faunas that evolved without mammalian predators are devastated when cats are introduced. Lacking evolved anti-predator defenses, island birds, reptiles and small mammals are…

An overview of how Canada lynx broaden their diet when snowshoe hares crash, a key feature of the boreal predator-prey cycle. Although lynx are hare specialists, during the hare decline and low they i…

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 methodological survey of the indices used to measure whether felids prefer or avoid prey relative to availability, including the Jacobs index, Ivlev's electivity and related measures central to the…

An overview of how the range of prey sizes a felid exploits scales with its own body mass, producing the nested prey-size structure of carnivore communities. Larger cats not only take larger average p…

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…