🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This early study documented how takeovers of prides by new male coalitions are followed by the death of dependent cubs, and how females then return to estrus and breed with the incoming males. By trac…

Bertram, B. C. R. · Journal of Zoology · 1975

This early field study examined how the social organization of lion prides governs which individuals breed and how successfully. The author related pride size, the tenure of resident male coalitions,…

Bertram BCR · Journal of Zoology · 1975

This sweeping review synthesized the global status of the world's largest carnivores, including big cats such as tigers, lions, and leopards, and documented that most are declining and have lost large…

Ripple WJ, Estes JA, Beschta RL, et al. · Science · 2014

This influential review synthesized the global status of the largest carnivores, including big cats such as lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars, documenting widespread range contraction and populatio…

Ripple, W.J., Estes, J.A., Beschta, R.L., Wilmers, C.C., Ritchie, E.G., Hebblewhite, M., et al. · Science · 2014

The big cats of the genus Panthera proved historically difficult to resolve because of rapid speciation and conflicting gene trees. This study assembled a large multilocus supermatrix and applied both…

Brian W. Davis, Gang Li, William J. Murphy · Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution · 2010

Relationships among the big cats long resisted resolution because of short internal branches and conflicting markers. This study assembled a large multi-gene dataset and applied both concatenated supe…

Davis BW, Li G, Murphy WJ · Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution · 2010

Using finite element analysis, the authors built a high-resolution digital model of a Smilodon fatalis skull and compared its mechanical performance against a modern lion. The simulations showed that…

Colin R. McHenry, Stephen Wroe, Philip D. Clausen, Karen Moreno, Eleanor Cunningham · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2007

This study built a high-resolution finite-element model of the skull of the sabertoothed cat Smilodon fatalis and compared its mechanical behaviour with that of a modern lion. The simulations indicate…

McHenry, C.R.; Wroe, S.; Clausen, P.D.; Moreno, K.; Cunningham, E. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2007

Kruuk documented and analyzed cases where carnivores kill far more prey than they can consume, challenging the assumption that predators only take what they need. Drawing on spotted hyena and other ca…

Kruuk, H. · Journal of Zoology · 1972

This experimental study assessed which domesticated species could be infected by SARS-CoV-2. The authors found that cats were highly susceptible: inoculated cats replicated the virus efficiently in th…

J. Shi, Z. Wen, G. Zhong, et al. · Science · 2020

This study analyzed lion population structure and history using both the lions' own genetic markers and the genomes of feline immunodeficiency virus strains that infect them. By treating the virus as…

Agostinho Antunes, Stephen J. O'Brien, et al. · PLoS Genetics · 2008

This study combined genomes from modern lions across Africa and India with ancient DNA from extinct cave lions to reconstruct the deep history of the lion lineage. The authors estimated that cave lion…

Marc de Manuel, Ross Barnett, Tomas Marques-Bonet, et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2020

This landmark study reconstructed the evolutionary tree of all 37 living cat species using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences combined with molecular dating calibrated by the fossil record. The a…

Warren E. Johnson, Eduardo Eizirik, Jill Pecon-Slattery, William J. Murphy, Agostinho Antunes, Emma Teeling, Stephen J. O'Brien · Science · 2006

This regional survey systematically searched protected areas across West Africa to determine where lions still survived, and found the situation far worse than expected. Lions had vanished from most o…

Henschel P, Coad L, Burton C, et al. · PLoS ONE · 2014

Patterson's book synthesises field biology, museum forensics, and historical records surrounding the 1898 Tsavo man-eating lions that halted railway construction over the Tsavo River. It examines comp…

Bruce D. Patterson · 2004

Schaller's monograph is the foundational field study of lion ecology and one of the most thorough predator-prey investigations ever conducted. Over years in the Serengeti, he documented lion social st…

Schaller, G.B. · University of Chicago Press · 1972

This monograph is a foundational field study of lion biology based on years of direct observation in the Serengeti ecosystem. While famous for its analysis of predation, it also provides detailed acco…

Schaller GB · University of Chicago Press · 1972

George Schaller spent three years observing lions on the Serengeti plains and woodlands, producing the first comprehensive natural history of the species. By following recognizable individuals he docu…

Schaller, G. B. · University of Chicago Press · 1972

This foundational monograph reported years of direct observation of lion prides in the Serengeti, establishing baseline knowledge of pride structure, cooperative hunting, territorial behaviour, scaven…

George Schaller · 1972

This study used satellite imagery and human population data to map how much of Africa's savannah remains suitable for lions, viewing the continent through the needs of a wide-ranging predator. The aut…

Riggio J, Jacobson A, Dollar L, et al. · Biodiversity and Conservation · 2013

This study produced the first reference genome of the tiger, sequenced from an Amur tiger, and compared it with newly generated lion and snow leopard genome data. The authors identified genetic signat…

Yun Sung Cho, Jong Bhak, et al. · Nature Communications · 2013

This influential synthesis explored why carnivores vary so much in sociality, from solitary cats to group-living species, linking social organization to the distribution of food in space and time. It…

Macdonald, D. W. · Nature · 1983

Drawing on long-term Serengeti records, this study analyzed why male lions disperse from their natal pride while females usually remain, producing the strongly female-philopatric, male-dispersing patt…

Pusey AE, Packer C · Behaviour · 1987

This study generated genome-scale data from ancient and modern lions, including the extinct cave lion, to reconstruct the deep evolutionary history of the lion lineage. The analyses confirmed that the…

Marc de Manuel, Ross Barnett, Marcela Sandoval-Velasco, Nobuyuki Yamaguchi, et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2020

Why can lions and tigers roar while domestic cats and cheetahs cannot? This comparative anatomical study examined the hyoid apparatus, the chain of bones supporting the larynx and tongue, across felid…

Gerald Weissengruber and colleagues · Journal of Anatomy · 2002

This widely cited quantitative synthesis estimated that free-ranging domestic cats in the contiguous United States kill billions of birds and tens of billions of mammals annually, with unowned cats re…

Scott Loss, Tom Will, Peter Marra · Nature Communications · 2013

Loss, Will and Marra produced a landmark quantitative estimate of how many wild animals free-ranging cats kill in the United States. Synthesizing data from predation studies through a systematic revie…

Scott R. Loss, Tom Will, Peter P. Marra · Nature Communications · 2013

This landmark quantitative synthesis estimated that free-ranging domestic cats kill billions of birds and many billions of mammals annually in the United States, identifying them as among the largest…

Loss SR, Will T, Marra PP · Nature Communications · 2013

This influential study reconstructed the molecular phylogeny of all living cat species and dated their diversification, establishing the framework of eight major felid lineages used ever since. Using…

Johnson WE, Eizirik E, Pecon-Slattery J, et al. · Science · 2006

Periquet, Fritz and Revilla reviewed the full breadth of interactions between lions and spotted hyenas, the two dominant large carnivores of African savannas. They synthesized evidence on kleptoparasi…

Periquet, S., Fritz, H. & Revilla, E. · Biological Reviews · 2015