🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This overview addresses how sabertooths like Smilodon achieved the enormous gape needed to clear their elongated canines and apply them to prey. Estimates suggest the jaws could open to roughly twice…

The jungle cat thrives in human-modified wetlands, irrigated croplands and reed beds across Asia and the Middle East, often close to villages and towns. This overview synthesises distribution, diet an…

The discovery that a terrestrial cat parasite kills marine mammals reshaped understanding of how pathogens cross ecosystem boundaries. This overview synthesizes research on the flow of Toxoplasma oocy…

The bobcat, a widespread and adaptable North American cat, has become a model for studying how roads, development, and habitat fragmentation shape gene flow in carnivores. This overview surveys geneti…

Depositing semen directly into the oviduct or uterus via laparoscopy bypasses cervical barriers and improves the odds of fertilization in cats with limited sperm quality. This overview surveys the dev…

This overview reviews evidence that the scimitar-toothed cat Homotherium latidens persisted in Europe far later than once believed. A well-known mandible dredged from the floor of the North Sea, dated…

Leopard cats are efficient predators of rodents and other small prey, and in agricultural mosaics they may provide pest-suppression services that benefit farmers. This overview synthesises scat and pr…

Beyond habitat loss, human landscapes emit pervasive light and noise, and this overview examines their effects on the movement and activity of cats. Artificial light at night can alter the cover-depen…

Litter size in cats varies within and between species, influenced by maternal age and condition, resource availability, and species biology. This overview surveys typical litter sizes from small felid…

This overview reviews what the skeletons of the earliest cats, especially Proailurus and early Pseudaelurus-grade forms, reveal about their locomotion and likely habits. Features such as relatively lo…

Captive cats often live longer than their wild counterparts, raising questions about how reproductive performance changes across an extended lifespan. This overview surveys data on longevity and repro…

Cats are famously indifferent to sweetness, and genetics revealed why: they carry a pseudogenized sweet-taste receptor gene that no longer produces a functional receptor. This overview surveys the dis…

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…

Lungworms such as Aelurostrongylus abstrusus and Troglostrongylus species infect the respiratory tracts of felids, causing coughing, respiratory distress and sometimes serious disease, particularly in…

Classical rabies virus is one of several lyssaviruses that can infect mammals, and felids may occasionally be exposed to other members of this genus, including bat-associated lyssaviruses. This overvi…

The major histocompatibility complex encodes immune-recognition molecules whose diversity is crucial for resisting pathogens, and its depletion is a key concern in inbred cat populations. This overvie…

Securing the attractants that draw felids toward people, including garbage, pet food, accessible livestock and the rodent and dog populations these support, is a frontline coexistence measure. This ov…

Degenerative joint disease is extremely common in older cats, both domestic and exotic, yet often under-recognised because cats mask pain. This overview surveys how osteoarthritis is detected and mana…

Many urban felid populations centre on protected areas embedded in or abutting cities, from Sanjay Gandhi National Park to Griffith Park and Table Mountain National Park, making the park-city interfac…

Camera-trap surveys aimed at tigers and leopards routinely capture a hidden bycatch of small Asian cats, marbled cat, leopard cat, golden cat, jungle cat, and others, providing rare records of poorly…

Mean kinship is a central metric used to decide which captive cats should breed in order to preserve genetic diversity. This overview surveys how mean kinship, the average relatedness of an individual…

Combinations of the alpha-2 agonist medetomidine (or dexmedetomidine) with the dissociative ketamine are a mainstay for immobilizing large felids, valued because the alpha-2 component provides sedatio…

How urban felids are portrayed in media and perceived by the public strongly influences tolerance, policy and conservation outcomes. This overview synthesises social-science research on news framing o…

Climate change is driving larger, more intense wildfires in many regions, and the extreme fire seasons in Australia, California, and elsewhere have reshaped how ecologists study fire and wildlife. Thi…

Melanism, the occurrence of all-black individuals, is relatively common in Geoffroys cat, and this overview reviews the phenomenon and its study. Dark color morphs appear at notable frequencies in som…

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…

This overview examines mesowear and other gross tooth-wear approaches as applied to extinct cats, which assess the cumulative shape and rounding of cusps to infer long-term dietary abrasiveness and ca…

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…

High-throughput sequencing has opened a new era of virus discovery, allowing researchers to catalog the viromes of wild felids without prior knowledge of which pathogens to seek. This overview surveys…