🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Cities support large populations of commensal rodents fed by human waste, and these rodents form a critical prey subsidy for small and medium urban felids from bobcats to leopard cats and jungle cats.…

This overview compares the four lynx species, the Eurasian, Canada, Iberian, and the bobcat, highlighting how a shared body plan has diversified across habitats and prey. All share short tails, ear tu…

Wildlife crossings are often designed with large mammals in mind, but smaller felids such as bobcats have distinct preferences, and this overview examines how they use such structures. Monitoring show…

Felids living at the edges of cities, such as bobcats and mountain lions in California, face a distinctive disease landscape shaped by human activity. This overview surveys the disease ecology of urba…

The Canada lynx and bobcat are North American members of the lynx lineage whose relationships and occasional hybridization illuminate felid speciation. This overview examines their divergence, with mo…

Domestic cats occupy the urban carnivore community alongside native mesopredators and larger carnivores, and their abundance is shaped by interactions with these species. This overview synthesises res…

Habitat edges created by urban development alter microclimate, vegetation, prey, disturbance and predator interactions, shaping how felids use the boundary between natural and built land. This overvie…

The wildland-urban interface, where development meets wildland vegetation, is expanding and is the zone where climate-driven fire most directly intersects with cat populations like urban-edge pumas an…

Documented first in southern California felids and later in Cape Town caracals, anticoagulant-rodenticide exposure in wild cats has emerged as a global phenomenon wherever predators hunt poisoned rode…

Landscape genetics, combining molecular markers with spatial models, has become essential for detecting how roads and development fragment felid populations and for prioritising connectivity. This ove…

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…

Where the ranges of the bobcat and the Canada lynx overlap along the southern edge of the lynx distribution, the two species occasionally hybridize, producing animals sometimes called blynx. This over…

Notoedric mange, caused by Notoedres cati mites, has driven severe, sometimes locally devastating outbreaks in bobcats, particularly around urbanizing areas of California. This overview synthesizes th…

Periodic outbreaks of notoedric mange have caused steep, localised declines in urban and suburban bobcat populations, most prominently in southern California. This overview synthesises research connec…

The lynx lineage comprises four species: the Eurasian lynx, the Iberian lynx, the Canada lynx, and the bobcat. This overview surveys the molecular phylogeny of the group, the timing of their divergenc…

The Canada lynx is tightly linked to boreal forests and the cyclical abundance of snowshoe hares, and its genetics reflect both high mobility and sensitivity to habitat at its southern range edge. Thi…

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…

Roads affect cats through direct mortality and through the barrier effect that fragments populations, a central theme in carnivore conservation. This overview surveys research quantifying how highways…

Urban infrastructure shapes the genetics of bobcat populations by impeding movement and gene flow across roads and developed corridors. This overview synthesises landscape-genetics studies, several fr…

A survey of how the Canada lynx's large, well-furred feet give it an advantage hunting snowshoe hares in deep, soft snow, and how snow conditions structure its competition with other predators. The ly…

A central theme in northern felid climate research is that the dividing line between Canada lynx and bobcat tracks snow conditions. This overview surveys the morphological and ecological basis for tha…

The bobcat is a widespread solitary North American felid whose behaviour has been studied through radio-telemetry and camera traps. This overview surveys research on bobcat spatial organisation, with…

Stable-isotope analysis of felid tissues offers a powerful way to quantify how much of a cat diet derives from anthropogenic versus natural sources, complementing scat analysis. This overview synthesi…

An overview of documented cases in which cats kill more prey than they can eat, extending Kruuk's classic analysis to felids. Surplus killing in cats typically occurs when normal prey escape responses…

Detecting whether bobcats are advancing into lynx range requires repeated, detection-corrected surveys across the contact zone. This overview surveys the field and analytical methods, snow-track surve…

Beyond domestic cats, wild felids such as bobcats and pumas sustain natural sylvatic cycles of Toxoplasma, shedding oocysts that infect wild prey and contribute to environmental contamination. This ov…

Suburban bobcats commonly adjust their activity timing to avoid peak human presence, becoming more nocturnal or crepuscular in developed areas while remaining more diurnal in wildland. This overview s…

The lynx lineage comprises four species: the Eurasian lynx, the Iberian lynx, the Canada lynx, and the bobcat. This overview surveys their relationships and biogeography, explaining how molecular phyl…

Mesopredator release, in which the decline of top predators allows smaller predators to increase and overexploit prey, is a foundational concept linking urban fragmentation to biodiversity loss. This…

Wild felids living near cities are exposed to pathogens including feline immunodeficiency virus, feline leukemia virus and others, sometimes shared with domestic cats, raising conservation and One Hea…