🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This monographic revision examined the pampas cats of South America, a group then placed in the genus Lynchailurus, and analyzed their morphological variation and biogeography. The author documented s…

Garcia-Perea R · American Museum Novitates · 1994

This study sequenced whole genomes from tigers representing the major living populations and found strong genomic support for distinct subspecies despite the tiger's recent origin. The authors detecte…

Liu YC, Sun X, Driscoll C, et al. · Current Biology · 2018

This genomic study sequenced multiple Panthera species and found pervasive evidence that gene flow between lineages, not just simple branching, shaped big cat evolution. The authors detected introgres…

Figueiro HV, Li G, Trindade FJ, et al. · Science Advances · 2017

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 study examined sex-chromosome DNA sequences to estimate the timing and pattern of diversification across the cat family. By comparing X- and Y-linked markers, which evolve at different rates and…

Pecon-Slattery J, O'Brien SJ · Genetics · 1998

This study analyzed mitochondrial and microsatellite markers from tigers across their range and provided the first comprehensive molecular framework supporting multiple traditional subspecies. The aut…

Luo SJ, Kim JH, Johnson WE, et al. · PLoS Biology · 2004

Molecular studies consistently show that African leopards, despite occupying a vast and varied continent, harbor relatively shallow genetic structure compared with the deep splits separating Asian for…

The European wildcat, Felis silvestris, persists in fragmented populations from Iberia and Scotland through central and eastern Europe to the Caucasus. This overview surveys studies of its genetic str…

A recurring complication in felid systematics is that trees built from mitochondrial DNA often disagree with those from nuclear DNA. This overview explains why: the maternally inherited mitochondrion…

Whether a cat population is a species or a subspecies depends heavily on which species concept is used. This overview compares the biological species concept (reproductive isolation), the phylogenetic…

The pampas cat, Leopardus colocola, shows dramatic variation in coat color and pattern across its wide South American range, fueling long debate over whether it is one variable species or several. Thi…

This overview explains the reasoning the Cat Classification Task Force used to justify a major revision rather than incremental edits. It describes the decision rules adopted: recognize taxa only when…

This influential study reconstructed the molecular phylogeny of all living cat species and dated their diversification, establishing the framework of eight major felid lineages used ever since. Using…

Johnson WE, Eizirik E, Pecon-Slattery J, et al. · Science · 2006