🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This morphological companion to the molecular split examined pelage and skull characters across clouded leopards and found that Sunda island animals differ consistently from mainland ones. The authors…

Kitchener AC, Beaumont MA, Richardson D · Current Biology · 2006

This study used multiple genetic markers to compare mainland and Sunda island clouded leopards and found divergence comparable to that between well-recognized cat species. The authors showed that clou…

Buckley-Beason VA, Johnson WE, Nash WG, et al. · Current Biology · 2006

This morphological study reconstructed relationships among the pantherine cats while explicitly incorporating fossil taxa and testing how missing data affect tree inference. Working from cranial and s…

Christiansen P · Cladistics · 2008

Recognizing two clouded leopard species reshaped conservation planning across Southeast Asia. This overview explains how the split meant that the Sunda clouded leopard, confined to Borneo and Sumatra,…

Clouded leopards have remarkable skulls and the longest canine teeth relative to body size of any living cat, and cranial characters contributed to recognizing two species. This overview discusses how…

Integrative taxonomy combines independent data classes (morphology, mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, ecology, biogeography, and behavior) to delimit taxa, and it has become the standard for resolving ca…

The history of cat classification is largely a story of tension and eventual integration between morphological and molecular approaches. This overview compares the two: morphology, including skull mor…

Coat pattern played a central role in confirming the clouded leopard split. This overview describes the diagnostic pelage differences: Sunda clouded leopards tend to have smaller, darker cloud marking…

After the Sunda clouded leopard, Neofelis diardi, was recognized as a species, attention turned to whether its Bornean and Sumatran populations are themselves distinct. This overview reviews studies s…

Molecular phylogenetics partitions all living cats into eight monophyletic lineages, a framework that now organizes felid taxonomy. This overview names and characterizes them: the Panthera lineage (bi…

The perennial tension between lumpers, who favor fewer broad taxa, and splitters, who recognize many fine ones, is sharply visible in cat classification. This overview examines how the debate plays ou…

The marbled cat, Pardofelis marmorata, is a small, arboreal Southeast Asian felid whose clouded-leopard-like coat once suggested a relationship to the big cats. This overview explains how molecular ph…

Clouded leopards occupy a pivotal position as the sister group to the other big cats within the subfamily Pantherinae. This overview explains how molecular phylogenies consistently place the genus Neo…

One of the clearest recent felid species splits separated the clouded leopard into two species. This overview explains how parallel molecular and morphological studies in 2006 revealed that clouded le…

Molecular phylogeography revealed that leopard cats on the Sunda islands of Southeast Asia diverge deeply from mainland leopard cats, leading to recognition of a separate species, the Sunda leopard ca…

Modern classifications divide living cats into two subfamilies: Pantherinae (the roaring and big cats plus clouded leopards) and Felinae (most small and medium cats). This overview explains how that s…

Cat classification is not merely academic; it directly shapes how cats are protected. This overview explains how taxonomy underlies Red List assessments, CITES appendices, and national legislation, al…

Relationships among the big cats long resisted resolution because of short internal branches and conflicting markers. This study assembled a large multi-gene dataset and applied both concatenated supe…

Davis BW, Li G, Murphy WJ · Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution · 2010