🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

As the largest African cat, the lion exerts strong intraguild pressure on cheetahs and leopards. This overview synthesizes research on how lions kill cheetah cubs and steal kills, forcing cheetahs int…

Where several large cats share a landscape, they coexist by partitioning resources along axes of prey size, habitat, and activity. This overview synthesizes research across continents showing how tige…

This overview surveys evidence on reinforcing nighttime livestock enclosures (bomas, kraals) to prevent attacks by lions, leopards, hyenas, and cheetahs across East African rangelands. It covers the p…

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…

Chronic kidney disease is a common cause of illness and death in aging captive big cats, paralleling its prominence in domestic cats and reflecting the longer lifespans achieved in managed care. Capti…

When males cooperate in coalitions, reproductive skew describes how evenly or unequally reproduction is divided among members. This overview surveys reproductive skew in felid coalitions, particularly…

An overview of how cheetahs reduce the risk of intraguild predation and kleptoparasitism by avoiding lions across space and time. As a subordinate cursorial predator, the cheetah suffers heavy cub mor…

Across felid species and populations, the quality of sperm morphology tends to correlate with the level of genetic diversity, linking population history to reproductive function. This overview surveys…

Many felids, especially genetically depauperate species like the cheetah, produce ejaculates with a high proportion of structurally abnormal sperm, a condition called teratospermia. This overview surv…

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…

Cats vary in how much they depend on free-standing water versus obtaining moisture from prey, a trait that shapes drought resilience in arid landscapes. This overview surveys what is known about water…

Beyond white tigers, other captive felid colour variants, white lions and the patterned king cheetah, raise similar questions about breeding for appearance. This overview surveys the genetics of these…

A survey of how the synchronized mass calving and movement of migratory wildebeest may swamp predators, reducing per-capita predation on any individual. By giving birth in a brief, highly synchronized…

Rising carbon dioxide, altered rainfall, and changed fire and grazing regimes are driving woody plant encroachment into many African savannas, reshaping habitat for cats and their prey. This overview…

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

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

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

Hunter, Durant and Caro examined the decisions cheetahs make at carcasses when dominant competitors threaten, quantifying how the presence of lions and hyenas governs whether and when cheetahs abandon…

Hunter, J.S., Durant, S.M. & Caro, T.M. · Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology · 2007

This comprehensive reference compiled the biology, ecology, and conservation status of all the world's wild cat species, from the great roaring cats to the smallest felids. Drawing together field stud…

Sunquist, M. E., Sunquist, F. C. · University of Chicago Press · 2002