🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Since the first lightly sequenced domestic cat genome, feline genomics has advanced to highly contiguous, chromosome-level assemblies for the domestic cat and an expanding set of wild species. This ov…

As suitable habitat contracts to higher, cooler refugia, the corridors linking snow leopard populations become critical for gene flow and recolonization. This overview surveys the methods researchers…

Protecting continuous elevation gradients lets species shift upslope as climate warms while staying within protected habitat, a recurring strategy for montane regions. This overview surveys the ration…

Rabies, an almost invariably fatal lyssavirus infection, occasionally strikes wild felids exposed through bites from infected dogs, jackals or other wildlife reservoirs. This overview surveys document…

Before estimating a home range, one must verify that the animal actually has one, that its movement is range-resident rather than dispersing, migrating, or nomadic. This overview describes diagnostic…

Snow leopard reproduction is shaped by the brief alpine summer and the harshness of the high-mountain environment. This overview synthesizes what is known about their breeding season, the use of shelt…

This overview examines social-science research on how Mumbai residents living near Sanjay Gandhi National Park perceive and respond to leopards. It synthesises studies of fear, tolerance, media framin…

This overview examines retaliatory poisoning, a leading and indiscriminate cause of large-carnivore mortality, focusing on the misuse of agricultural pesticides such as carbofuran (sold as Furadan) la…

This overview examines efforts to revive the traditional Mongolian Bankhar livestock-guarding dog as a tool for reducing depredation by snow leopards, wolves, and other predators on the steppe and in…

This overview examines the persistent gap between perceived and actual risk in human-big cat conflict, a theme cutting across lion, tiger, leopard, puma, and jaguar systems. It synthesises research sh…

Roads fragment habitat, kill animals, and act as barriers to movement, making road ecology an important field for carnivore conservation. This overview surveys research on how roads affect big cats an…

Across their range, leopard cats living in farmland and forest-edge mosaics suffer heavy road mortality, a leading documented cause of death in well-studied populations such as Taiwan. This overview s…

GPS satellite collars have transformed understanding of snow leopard ecology, revealing that these cats range over far larger areas than once assumed. This overview surveys telemetry research showing…

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…

Solitary snow leopards communicate across their vast ranges through scent marks placed at conspicuous sites. This overview synthesizes research on how snow leopards spray scent on overhanging rocks, m…

Leopards maintain their land-tenure system through scent marking, scrapes, and vocalizations that let solitary individuals space themselves and find mates. This overview synthesizes research on how le…

Snow leopards shift their use of the mountains seasonally, often following the movements of their prey up and down the slopes. This overview synthesizes tracking studies showing how snow leopards desc…

This overview examines the wider ecological fallout of retaliatory poisoning aimed at big cats, especially the catastrophic secondary poisoning of vultures and other scavengers that feed on laced carc…

Clouded leopards are difficult to breed in captivity, and reproductive research has examined their semen quality alongside behavioral and stress factors. This overview surveys what is known about clou…

Infanticide by males is documented or inferred across many felid species, from lions to tigers, leopards, pumas, and others, wherever killing dependent young can hasten a female's next conception. Thi…

Wire snares are among the most pervasive and indiscriminate threats to big cats, killing or maiming tigers, leopards, lions, and other predators directly and decimating the prey populations they depen…

This overview reviews how wire snaring set for bushmeat indirectly drives big-cat conflict and mortality, a growing threat across Africa and Asia. It synthesises evidence that snares intended for ante…

When GPS collars replaced VHF on snow leopards, they revealed home ranges dramatically larger than earlier studies had suggested, and this overview examines why. VHF tracking in such rugged, remote te…

Beyond mapping where snow leopards go, collar-mounted activity sensors and fix-timing data reveal when they are active, and this overview synthesizes what telemetry shows about their diel and seasonal…

Predator movement is often shaped by the movements of prey, and this overview examines how snow leopard ranging relates to the distribution and movements of wild ungulates such as ibex, argali, and bl…

This overview examines human-snow leopard conflict on the Mongolian steppe and mountains, where mobile pastoralists herding goats, sheep, yaks, and horses overlap with snow leopards across vast rangel…

Across the high mountains of Asia, snow leopards and pastoralists overlap, and depredation on livestock drives conflict central to the cat's conservation. This overview synthesizes studies on the patt…

Snow leopards are strongly associated with broken, cliffy terrain, and this overview examines how their fine-scale movement follows ridgelines, cliff bases, and rugged features that provide stalking c…

Across the high mountains of Asia, snow leopards prey on domestic sheep, goats, and yaks, creating conflict with herding communities whose livelihoods depend on their animals. This overview surveys re…

This overview synthesizes telemetry evidence on how snow leopards disperse across the vast, rugged mountain systems of Central and South Asia. GPS-collared individuals, especially subadults, have unde…