🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

An overview of how energetic costs and benefits shape the prey sizes big cats prefer to hunt. Optimal foraging predicts that predators target prey large enough to yield a high energy return per kill y…

Oral vaccination, delivered through baits, has been used to immunize wildlife reservoirs against rabies and is considered for other diseases, with indirect benefits for exposed felids. This overview s…

Stimulating the ovaries with exogenous gonadotropins to produce multiple follicles is a key step in collecting eggs or preparing females for insemination in cats. This overview surveys ovarian stimula…

Grafting felid ovarian tissue into immunodeficient host animals is an experimental method for maturing follicles and recovering oocytes from banked or rescued tissue. This overview surveys research on…

Many captive cats, notably cheetahs and clouded leopards, undergo prolonged periods of ovarian inactivity in which they neither cycle nor ovulate, undermining breeding programs. This overview examines…

Synchronizing ovulation with the delivery of semen is essential for successful artificial insemination, since eggs and sperm must meet within a narrow window. This overview surveys methods for timing…

Parvoviruses of carnivores have a history of host-switching, with canine parvovirus having evolved from a feline-like ancestor and continuing to exchange between hosts. This overview surveys the evolu…

Most modern camera traps fire when a passive infrared sensor detects a moving heat signature, the contrast between a warm animal and its cooler background. This overview explains how PIR sensors work,…

The concept of pathogen pollution describes the human-mediated introduction of pathogens into new host populations, a recurring driver of disease in wild felids. This overview surveys how activities s…

Zoos and breeding programs maintain studbooks to manage the genetics of captive cat populations, aiming to retain diversity and avoid inbreeding across generations. This overview surveys how pedigree…

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…

Individual cats differ consistently in boldness, fearfulness, aggressiveness and sociability, and these stable traits affect welfare, breeding success and how animals respond to husbandry. This overvi…

Climate change is shifting the timing of biological events, and while phenology is best studied in plants and birds, it bears on cats through their prey and reproductive timing. This overview surveys…

This overview synthesizes the deep-time evolution of cats, from the Oligocene Proailurus and Miocene Pseudaelurus stem felids through the divergence of the conical-toothed Felinae and the sabertoothed…

The ocelot and margay are widespread Neotropical cats whose phylogeography reveals how rainforest history structured small felid populations. This overview surveys studies showing pronounced genetic s…

Anesthetizing large felids carries substantial physiologic risk, and monitoring of oxygenation, ventilation, heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature is essential, with pulse oximetry, capnography,…

Population viability analysis, PVA, uses demographic and genetic models to estimate the probability that a population will persist over a given time, helping conservationists assess risk and compare m…

Population viability analysis integrates demography, genetics and connectivity to project the persistence of small felid populations isolated by urbanisation, guiding conservation triage and intervent…

Operant conditioning with positive reinforcement underpins modern husbandry training, allowing cats to cooperate in shifting, crating, weighing and medical procedures. This overview surveys the learni…

After a sufficient mating stimulus, the time from the luteinizing hormone surge to actual egg release follows a characteristic interval that determines the optimal window for fertilization. This overv…

Recovering viable gametes from animals shortly after death allows valuable genetics to be salvaged that would otherwise be lost. This overview surveys post-mortem gamete rescue in felids, including th…

Designing a camera-trap study to reliably answer its question requires anticipating whether the planned effort will yield enough data for adequate statistical power, the ability to detect a real effec…

A survey of how felids exploit the seasonal pulse of newborn ungulates, a period of high vulnerability that can dominate annual recruitment losses. During calving and fawning seasons, abundant, hidden…

Play, especially object play that mimics hunting, is both an indicator and a contributor to good welfare in cats, and its absence can signal stress or poor environments. This overview surveys research…

A survey of the strong, general relationship between the abundance of prey and the density of the carnivores that depend on them, a cornerstone of predator ecology. Across species and systems, predato…

Modern zoos run structured preventive medicine programs for captive felids encompassing routine health monitoring, parasite control, vaccination, nutritional management, dental care, and increasingly…

A survey of the anti-predator escape behaviors prey use once detected or attacked by cats and how they determine the outcome of a hunt. Prey employ rapid acceleration, unpredictable zig-zagging, stott…

How flexibly a cat can switch prey when its preferred species declines shapes its resilience to drought and habitat change. This overview surveys evidence on dietary breadth across felids, from specia…

An overview of the behavioral defenses ungulates and other prey deploy against felid predators, from vigilance scanning to alarm signaling and habitat avoidance. Because cats are stealthy ambush hunte…

Artificial light alters the behaviour, abundance and detectability of the rodents, birds and insects that felids hunt, indirectly affecting predators through the prey base. This overview synthesises r…