🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Managing captive felid populations requires balancing genetic goals, such as retaining diversity, against demographic goals, such as maintaining stable numbers and age structure. This overview surveys…

Successful reproduction in captivity depends not only on physiology but on appropriate behavior, including mate recognition, courtship, and competent maternal care. This overview surveys how behaviora…

Behaviour offers a rich, non-invasive window into felid welfare, but interpreting it requires care. This overview surveys the behavioural signs used to assess captive cats: stereotypic pacing and rout…

Sedentary captive cats fed energy-dense diets are prone to obesity, which carries serious welfare and health consequences. This overview surveys body-condition management in felids: the prevalence and…

Captive cats fed soft, processed diets commonly develop dental disease such as gingivitis, calculus and tooth fractures, whereas chewing on bone, hide and connective tissue provides natural abrasion a…

Canine distemper virus (CDV) is a morbillivirus closely related to measles and rinderpest that has expanded its host range far beyond dogs to infect lions, tigers, leopards, hyenas, seals and many oth…

Capture myopathy, a potentially fatal syndrome of muscle damage arising from the stress, exertion, and physiologic derangement of capture and restraint, is a recognized risk when immobilizing wild fel…

An overview of how the kills of large felids redistribute energy and nutrients through ecosystems. Carcasses and the cats' partly eaten remains create nutrient hotspots that fertilize soils and vegeta…

The catnip response, a heritable reaction to nepetalactone causing sniffing, rubbing, rolling and a euphoric-seeming state, occurs in many domestic cats and some non-domestic felids. This overview sur…

Chronic activation of the stress axis can suppress immunity, impair reproduction and contribute to disease, and several captive cat species show evidence of such chronic stress. This overview surveys…

Cognitive enrichment challenges animals to solve problems for rewards, engaging mental faculties and providing a sense of control. This overview surveys the emerging use of cognitive enrichment for ca…

Controlling reproduction is essential for managing captive cat populations within space and genetic limits, but contraceptive methods carry welfare and health considerations. This overview surveys opt…

Managing the size and genetics of captive felid populations sometimes requires preventing reproduction in animals that are genetically overrepresented or surplus to program needs. This overview survey…

Cooperative care trains animals through positive reinforcement to participate voluntarily in medical procedures, replacing the stress and risk of immobilisation. This overview surveys how big cats are…

In induced-ovulating felids the chance that mating triggers ovulation rises with the number and spacing of copulations, suggesting a threshold of cumulative stimulation that the female's neuroendocrin…

Measuring whether a conservation intervention actually helped requires comparing outcomes against a credible counterfactual of what would have happened otherwise. This overview surveys quasi-experimen…

The most realistic forecasts of cat futures combine climate change with land-use change, since for many forest cats habitat conversion is the faster, larger threat. This overview surveys how integrate…

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a web of animal infections, with cats among the susceptible species alongside mink, ferrets and others. This overview surveys cross-species SARS-CoV-2 dynamics relevant…

While remote darting is essential for immobilizing dangerous felids, the dart itself can cause injury, including muscle trauma, infection at the injection site, bone impact, or, rarely, penetration of…

Declawing of big cats, performed in some private and entertainment settings to reduce injury risk to handlers, removes the last bone of each toe and has lasting welfare consequences. This overview sur…

Demodex mites live in the skin of many mammals, usually harmlessly, but can proliferate to cause demodectic mange when host immunity falters. This overview surveys reports of demodicosis in wild and c…

Captive big cats have become subjects of cognitive testing that reveals their learning abilities and informs enrichment. This overview surveys research using touchscreen and apparatus-based discrimina…

Captive felids in zoos and sanctuaries require systematic disease surveillance both for their own health and as sentinels for emerging threats. This overview surveys health monitoring in captive cat c…

Habitat corridors that allow subadult cats to move between core areas are central to maintaining gene flow and demographic exchange in fragmented landscapes. This overview surveys research on how conn…

Collecting semen from nondomestic cats usually requires electroejaculation under anesthesia, a standardized technique that allows evaluation and banking of sperm. This overview surveys how electroejac…

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic underscored that felids are susceptible to emerging coronaviruses, prompting renewed attention to the coronavirus host range in cats. This overview surveys the susceptibility o…

Comparative and within-institution studies have probed which enclosure features predict pacing in captive cats. This overview surveys evidence relating stereotypic pacing to enclosure size, complexity…

Accurate drug dosing for field immobilization depends on estimating the body weight of an unweighable free-ranging felid, a source of significant error that can lead to underdosing, with dangerous inc…

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…

A survey of the conditions under which big cats switch from hunting to scavenging, and what this means for their ecology. Although large felids lack the scavenging specializations of hyenas and vultur…