🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

In 1994 a canine distemper epidemic swept the Serengeti, killing roughly a third of its lions and spreading to leopards, hyenas and other carnivores. This overview reconstructs the outbreak timeline:…

The American lion, Panthera atrox, was one of the largest cats ever to live, roaming Pleistocene North America south of the ice sheets. This overview surveys ancient-DNA evidence indicating that the A…

This overview examines the record of Panthera atrox at Rancho La Brea, where the American lion is far less common than the sabertooth Smilodon but is nonetheless represented by valuable cranial and po…

The Asiatic lion, once spread across southwest Asia, survives as a single wild population in and around the Gir forest of Gujarat, India, recovered from a few dozen animals a century ago to several hu…

This overview examines the central role of the Bering land bridge in the history of cats, serving as a recurrent corridor for felid movement between Asia and North America. The survey reviews how lowe…

The Lion Guardians model, developed in Maasai lands of East Africa, employs young men from local communities, often former lion hunters, to monitor lions, warn herders, reinforce enclosures, and reduc…

This overview examines the Lion Guardians program in East Africa, which employs Maasai warriors to monitor lions, recover lost livestock, reinforce bomas, and warn herders, converting potential lion-k…

This overview examines a well-documented predator compensation fund on Mbirikani Group Ranch in southern Kenya, where Maasai livestock owners receive payments for verified kills by lions and other car…

The Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool, SMART, has become a global standard for making ranger patrols data-driven across big cat reserves. This overview surveys research on how SMART records patrol…

This overview describes a pair of cave lion cubs, often referred to as Uyan and Dina, recovered from Siberian permafrost and among the first such mummified Panthera spelaea young to attract wide scien…

The Barbary lion of North Africa, famed for its dark, full mane, went extinct in the wild during the 20th century, and its status has fascinated taxonomists. This overview reviews ancient and historic…

Unlike the primate fovea, the cat's region of sharpest vision is a broader, shallower zone called the area centralis. This survey reviews what is known about its photoreceptor and ganglion cell compos…

This overview examines the cat gap, a roughly seven-million-year interval in the Oligocene and early Miocene during which true cats are essentially absent from the North American fossil record, even t…

This overview examines the vast geographic range of the cave lion, which spread across northern Eurasia and into Beringia and parts of northwestern North America during the Pleistocene. This enormous…

The Pleistocene cave lion was a widespread Eurasian and Beringian predator, and ancient DNA has clarified how it relates to living lions. This overview summarizes genetic evidence that the cave lion,…

This overview examines the long-running debate over what the American lion, Panthera atrox, actually was. Since its description from Pleistocene North America, researchers have variously regarded it a…

A consistent finding across lion genetics is a deep division between northern and southern populations that crosses the Sahara and reaches into Asia. This overview explains the evidence for this split…

The lion's mane is a sexually selected ornament whose size and color vary with age, testosterone, climate, and individual condition. This overview surveys what is known about the developmental and hor…

Modern cats are divided into eight monophyletic lineages: the Panthera lineage (lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, snow leopards, clouded leopards), the bay cat lineage, the caracal lineage, the ocelot…

This overview surveys the fossil record of the jaguar lineage and its spread into the Americas. The jaguar, Panthera onca, traces its origins to Old World pantherines whose descendants crossed into No…

This overview describes two remarkably preserved cave lion cubs, nicknamed Sparta and Boris, recovered from the permafrost of Yakutia in northeastern Siberia. Frozen for tens of thousands of years, th…

The Asiatic lion survives as a single population in and around the Gir Forest of western India, having recovered from perhaps a few dozen individuals around the start of the twentieth century. This ov…

The Asiatic lion of India's Gir Forest is the last surviving lion population in Asia and has long been treated as a distinct subspecies, Panthera leo persica. This overview examines its genetic status…

Crosses between lions and tigers in captivity produce ligers and tigons, hybrids notable for unusual growth patterns, with ligers often growing larger than either parent. This overview surveys the bio…

White lions, associated with the Timbavati region of South Africa, display a pale cream to near-white coat caused by a recessive color variant rather than true albinism, since they retain pigmented ey…

Cats are obligate carnivores, physiologically dependent on a meat diet, and comparative genomics has uncovered the molecular underpinnings of this specialization. This overview surveys findings that f…

The Cape lion of southern Africa, extinct since the 19th century and noted for its dark mane, was once thought to be a distinct subspecies. This overview reviews genetic studies of museum specimens th…

The jaguar, the only Panthera species in the Americas, occupies an informative position in big cat phylogeny. This overview explains how molecular data place the jaguar within the genus Panthera, clos…

Beyond killing prey, big cats shape ecosystems through the fear they inspire, altering where and how prey forage. This overview synthesizes research on the landscape of fear, in which the risk of pred…

Growing demand for lion bones, partly as a substitute for tiger parts in traditional medicine markets, has raised concern about new pressures on wild lions. This overview surveys research and policy a…