🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This landmark study isolated a novel lentivirus from a California cattery where cats showed chronic, AIDS-like immunodeficiency with opportunistic infections and wasting. The team recovered a T-lympho…

Pedersen NC, Ho EW, Brown ML, Yamamoto JK · Science · 1987

This influential study identified the molecular basis of black coats across multiple cat species and showed that melanism evolved independently several times in the family. The authors found that mela…

Eduardo Eizirik, Stephen J. O'Brien, et al. · Current Biology · 2003

In this classic experiment, cats that watched a trained demonstrator perform a lever-press for food learned the response faster than cats given only individual trial-and-error experience. The study pr…

E. Roy John and colleagues · Science · 1968

This comparative study applied trait ratings to multiple felid species, including domestic cats, African lions, snow leopards, clouded leopards, and Scottish wildcats, to ask whether personality dimen…

Marieke Gartner, David Powell, Alexander Weiss · Journal of Comparative Psychology · 2014

Nutter, Levine and Stoskopf studied the reproductive biology of free-roaming cats to inform population management, monitoring breeding females in feral colonies. They documented high reproductive outp…

Felicia B. Nutter, Jay F. Levine, Michael K. Stoskopf · Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association · 2004

Lentiviruses related to domestic-cat FIV circulate widely in wild felid species including lions, pumas, leopards, and others, often at high seroprevalence yet apparently with limited disease in their…

The African or Near Eastern wildcat, Felis silvestris lybica, is the direct ancestor of all domestic cats. This overview surveys its ecology, distribution and behaviour, describing a solitary, territo…

Allonursing, the nursing of non-offspring, is best documented in lions but reported in other group-living or colonial felid contexts, including domestic cat colonies. This overview surveys research on…

Mitochondrial DNA, maternally inherited and abundant in old specimens, has been central to reconstructing cat history. This overview surveys how researchers define and use maternal haplogroups, includ…

Domestication reshaped cat behavior, reducing fear of humans and increasing tolerance and sociability, and genetics is beginning to reveal the underlying changes. This overview surveys evidence that s…

Comparing the domestic cat with its wild ancestor illuminates how domestication has reshaped behaviour. This overview surveys research contrasting African and European wildcats with domestic cats in t…

Cats retain the ability to taste bitter compounds, supported by a family of bitter taste receptor genes. This overview surveys what is known about the feline bitter receptor repertoire and its likely…

Modern cat breeds emerged recently from broadly distributed random-bred populations, and this overview surveys research reconstructing their ancestry and relationships. It examines genetic studies tra…

Cognition has been studied far less in cats than in primates, birds, or dogs, but a coherent picture is emerging across the felid family. This overview synthesises research on object permanence, spati…

Cats and dogs differ in how they handle water, and this overview reviews the comparison and its roots in feline biology. Cats, descended from desert-adapted ancestors, tend to have a lower thirst driv…

Declawing, or onychectomy, removes not just the claw but the terminal toe bone, and this overview surveys its biomechanical and welfare consequences. Because the claw grows from that bone, eliminating…

The domestic cat traces to a desert-adapted wild ancestor, and this overview reviews how that heritage shapes its water physiology today. Descended from the African wildcat of arid regions, domestic c…

Because the domestic cat and its wild relatives remain fully interfertile, hybridization is a persistent conservation concern, especially for the European wildcat, Felis silvestris silvestris, in plac…

Successive improvements to the domestic cat reference genome have made the species a tractable model for genetics and biomedicine. This overview surveys the development of cat genome assemblies and as…

An overview of the substantial toll free-ranging domestic cats take on wild birds, small mammals, reptiles and amphibians in urban, suburban and rural landscapes. Both owned outdoor cats and unowned f…

Using domestic cats to gestate embryos of related wild species offers a practical surrogate system for conservation reproductive technology. This overview surveys the use of domestic cat recipients to…

The African wildcat, closely related to the domestic cat, has been a key species for demonstrating embryo transfer and related technologies in a wild felid. This overview surveys work in which African…

Embryo transfer, in which embryos are moved to a recipient female to establish pregnancy, was developed in the domestic cat as a foundation for felid conservation applications. This overview surveys h…

The domestic cat genome carries endogenous retroviral sequences related to FeLV, remnants of ancient germline infections that are inherited rather than transmitted. These endogenous elements can recom…

The interval between successive estrous periods varies considerably among cat species and depends on whether ovulation has occurred. This overview surveys data on follicular phase duration, interestro…

Female cats in estrus display a recognizable suite of behaviors, including increased vocalization, rolling, treading, lordosis posture, and heightened receptivity to males. This overview describes the…

Obesity has become one of the most common nutritional disorders in domestic cats, driven by overfeeding, calorie-dense diets, indoor sedentary lifestyles, and neutering, and it substantially increases…

A survey of the documented and ongoing impacts of feral domestic cats on island vertebrates, among the most damaging examples of introduced-predator effects. Feral cats have contributed to dozens of b…

Despite descending from wildcats only thousands of years ago, domestic cats differ subtly in genetics and behavior, and characterizing this divergence illuminates the domestication process. This overv…

Several popular domestic cat breeds were created by crossing house cats with wild felid species, including the Bengal from the Asian leopard cat, the Savannah from the serval, and the Chausie from the…