🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

A companion to their prey-selection study, Karanth and Sunquist examined how the hunting behavior, social organization and activity patterns of tigers, leopards and dholes in Nagarahole map onto their…

Karanth, K.U. & Sunquist, M.E. · Journal of Zoology · 2000

Andheria, Karanth and Kumar quantified the diets of tiger, leopard and dhole in southern India's Bandipur Tiger Reserve using scat analysis combined with prey-availability data. They documented how th…

Andheria, A.P., Karanth, K.U. & Kumar, N.S. · Journal of Zoology · 2007

A landmark study of intraguild prey partitioning in India's Nagarahole reserve, combining prey censuses with predator kill records to test how three sympatric large carnivores divide a shared ungulate…

Karanth, K.U. & Sunquist, M.E. · Journal of Animal Ecology · 1995

An overview of how the kills of large felids redistribute energy and nutrients through ecosystems. Carcasses and the cats' partly eaten remains create nutrient hotspots that fertilize soils and vegeta…

A survey of the three-way interactions among tigers, leopards and dholes, the dominant predators of South and Southeast Asian forests. These species partition a shared ungulate community by prey size…

A survey of the conditions under which big cats switch from hunting to scavenging, and what this means for their ecology. Although large felids lack the scavenging specializations of hyenas and vultur…

A survey of how prey use group living to reduce predation by cats, through the many-eyes effect, dilution, confusion and collective defense. Larger herds detect stalking felids sooner and dilute indiv…

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…

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 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…

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,…

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