🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Pion and colleagues discovered that dilated cardiomyopathy, then a common and usually fatal heart disease in cats, was frequently caused by deficiency of the amino acid taurine, which cats cannot synt…

Paul D. Pion, Mark D. Kittleson, Quinton R. Rogers, James G. Morris · Science · 1987

This pivotal study linked dilated cardiomyopathy, then a common and frequently fatal heart disease in cats, to taurine deficiency, showing that affected cats had low plasma taurine and that taurine su…

Pion PD, Kittleson MD, Rogers QR, Morris JG · Science · 1987

Building on their Nature note, Clubb and Mason developed a fuller comparative model of which natural traits predict poor captive welfare in carnivores. Across dozens of species they tested whether hom…

Clubb R, Mason GJ · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · 2007

Remmers and Gautier examined how cats generate the purr by combining electromyographic recordings of respiratory and laryngeal muscles with airflow measurements. They found that purring involves rhyth…

J. E. Remmers, H. Gautier · Respiration Physiology · 1972

Whitham and Wielebnowski argued that zoo welfare assessment should move beyond minimising negative states toward measuring and promoting positive welfare, and toward individual-level, continuous monit…

Whitham JC, Wielebnowski N · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · 2013

Palme reviewed methods for measuring glucocorticoid metabolites non-invasively in faeces, urine, hair and saliva, a cornerstone technique for assessing stress in captive and wild animals without restr…

Palme R · Physiology & Behavior · 2019

Wielebnowski and colleagues studied the notoriously difficult-to-breed North American clouded leopard population, using faecal corticoid monitoring across many individuals. They linked elevated adrena…

Wielebnowski NC, Fletchall N, Carlstead K, Busso JM, Brown JL · Zoo Biology · 2002

This study used fecal glucocorticoid monitoring to investigate why captive clouded leopards often breed poorly and show high rates of mate aggression. The authors related adrenal hormone output to hou…

Wielebnowski NC, Fletchall N, Carlstead K, Busso JM, Brown JL · Zoo Biology · 2002

Part of the Kluane Boreal Forest Ecosystem Project, this study tracked how lynx and coyote densities changed across a full snowshoe hare cycle. O'Donoghue and colleagues documented strong numerical re…

O'Donoghue, M., Boutin, S., Krebs, C.J. & Hofer, E.J. · Ecology · 1997

This early comparative study assessed how cats and dogs solve visible and invisible displacement tasks, the benchmarks Piaget used to chart object permanence in human infants. Both species succeeded a…

Estrella Triana, Robert Pasnak · Animal Learning and Behavior · 1981

In this classic experiment, cats that watched a trained demonstrator perform a lever-press for food learned the response faster than cats given only individual trial-and-error experience. The study pr…

E. Roy John and colleagues · Science · 1968

This review synthesized how tri-axial accelerometers had become a workhorse for inferring behavior in animals that are difficult or impossible to watch directly, including cryptic and nocturnal carniv…

Danielle D. Brown, Roland Kays, Martin Wikelski, Rory Wilson, A. Peter Klimley · Animal Biotelemetry · 2013

Dillon and Kelly combined camera trapping with radio telemetry to study ocelots, using telemetry-derived home-range information to inform and validate camera-trap density estimates. By comparing movem…

Anthony Dillon, Marcella J. Kelly · Journal of Zoology · 2007

This study described Panthera zdanskyi, an exceptionally complete fossil cat skull from northwestern China that illuminates the early evolution of the tiger lineage. Dated to the Pliocene, the specime…

Ji H. Mazak, Per Christiansen, Andrew C. Kitchener · PLoS ONE · 2011

Maffei, Cuellar, and Noss applied jaguar camera-trap capture-recapture in the dry Chaco forest of Bolivia's Kaa-Iya National Park, one of the largest protected areas in the region. From individually i…

Leonardo Maffei, Erika Cuellar, Andrew Noss · Journal of Zoology · 2004

Mellor elaborated the Five Domains Model, which structures welfare assessment around four physical and functional domains, nutrition, environment, health and behaviour, that feed into a fifth, the ani…

Mellor DJ · Animals · 2017

Cooper examined why lions live in groups by testing whether larger groups better retain their kills against kleptoparasitic spotted hyenas. Observations showed that single or paired lions frequently l…

Cooper, S.M. · African Journal of Ecology · 1991

When the Iriomote cat was discovered on the small Japanese island of Iriomote, it was originally described as a strikingly distinct felid, placed in its own genus and species and treated as a living r…

Imaizumi Y · 1967

This study tested whether Smilodon fatalis was social by treating the Rancho La Brea tar seeps as a fossilized natural experiment. Modern audio playbacks of distressed prey draw social carnivores in f…

Chris Carbone, Tom Maddox, Paul J. Funston, Michael G. L. Mills, Gregory F. Grether, Blaire Van Valkenburgh · Biology Letters · 2009

Challenging the assumption that FIV is harmless in its natural hosts, this study examined wild African lions for clinical and pathological signs associated with feline immunodeficiency virus infection…

M. E. Roelke, J. Pecon-Slattery, S. Taylor, et al. · Virology · 2009

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

Sinclair, Mduma and Brashares tested why some Serengeti ungulate species are regulated by predation while others are limited by food, using long-term data across the migratory and resident herbivore c…

Sinclair, A.R.E., Mduma, S. & Brashares, J.S. · Nature · 2003

Suryawanshi and colleagues quantified livestock depredation by snow leopards and wolves across the Indian trans-Himalaya and compared actual losses with herders' perceptions of those losses. They foun…

Kulbhushansingh R. Suryawanshi, et al. · Journal of Applied Ecology · 2013

Marker, Dickman, and Macdonald evaluated the Cheetah Conservation Fund's program placing Anatolian shepherd and Kangal guarding dogs with Namibian farmers to reduce cheetah and other predator losses.…

Laurie L. Marker, Amy J. Dickman, David W. Macdonald · Rangeland Ecology & Management · 2005

Cheetahs breed poorly in captivity, and this study asked whether temperament was part of the problem. Keepers rated individual cheetahs on behavioural traits, yielding dimensions such as tense-fearful…

Nadja Wielebnowski · Zoo Biology · 1999

This comparative study applied trait ratings to multiple felid species, including domestic cats, African lions, snow leopards, clouded leopards, and Scottish wildcats, to ask whether personality dimen…

Marieke Gartner, David Powell, Alexander Weiss · Journal of Comparative Psychology · 2014

Gartner, Powell and Weiss applied systematic personality assessment to four felid species, having keepers rate individuals on behavioural traits and then analysing the underlying structure. They ident…

Gartner MC, Powell DM, Weiss A · Journal of Comparative Psychology · 2014

Tuia and colleagues offered a broad, forward-looking synthesis of how machine learning can advance wildlife conservation, with camera-trap image analysis as a central example alongside acoustic, satel…

Devis Tuia, Benjamin Kellenberger, Sara Beery, Blair R. Costelloe, Silvia Zuffi, et al. · Nature Communications · 2022

Mellen and MacPhee reflected on how environmental enrichment evolved from ad hoc novelty provision toward a goal-directed, integrated husbandry process. They proposed a framework in which enrichment i…

Mellen J, MacPhee MS · Zoo Biology · 2001

This systematic study examined the North American species long grouped under Pseudaelurus, the assemblage of stem cats that bridged the earliest felids and the later radiation of modern cats and saber…

Tom Rothwell · American Museum Novitates · 2003