🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This study focused on the poorly sampled lions of West and Central Africa and found them genetically distinct from East and Southern African lions, instead allied with the Asiatic lion. By analyzing m…

Bertola LD, van Hooft WF, Vrieling K, et al. · Journal of Biogeography · 2011

This study analyzed genomes across the genus Panthera and found pervasive evidence of ancient gene flow among the big-cat lineages, demonstrating that their evolution was reticulate rather than strict…

Henrique V. Figueiro, Eduardo Eizirik, et al. · Science Advances · 2017

This genomic study sequenced multiple Panthera species and found pervasive evidence that gene flow between lineages, not just simple branching, shaped big cat evolution. The authors detected introgres…

Figueiro HV, Li G, Trindade FJ, et al. · Science Advances · 2017

Scheel and Packer analyzed Serengeti lion hunts to test whether group hunting reflects true cooperation or individuals each maximizing their own success. They found that hunting success increased with…

Scheel, D. & Packer, C. · Animal Behaviour · 1991

Drawing on decades of Serengeti tracking, this study mapped how pride size and territory location determine reproductive success. Larger prides won contests over prime real estate, particularly river…

Anna Mosser, Craig Packer · Animal Behaviour · 2009

Drawing on decades of Serengeti pride records and GPS data, this study quantified how the number of adult females in a pride affects its ability to win contested ground and raise cubs. Larger prides d…

Mosser, A., Packer, C. · Animal Behaviour · 2009

Inskip and Zimmermann produced a comprehensive global review of conflict between people and wild cats, synthesising the geography, drivers, and severity of conflict across all felid species. They iden…

Chloe Inskip, Alexandra Zimmermann · Oryx · 2009

Funston, Mills and Biggs challenged the stereotype that male lions are merely scavengers reliant on females' kills. Working in Kruger National Park, they showed that male lions hunt effectively, parti…

Funston, P.J., Mills, M.G.L. & Biggs, H.C. · Journal of Zoology · 2001

Palomares and Caro compiled and analyzed the global record of carnivores killing other carnivores, establishing intraguild predation as a widespread structuring force. They showed that interspecific k…

Palomares, F. & Caro, T.M. · The American Naturalist · 1999

Radloff and Du Toit analyzed the southern African large-carnivore guild to show that a predator's body mass sets both the average and the upper limit of the prey sizes it takes. Larger predators such…

Radloff, F.G.T. & Du Toit, J.T. · Journal of Animal Ecology · 2004

Woodroffe and Frank examined how retaliatory and preemptive killing of lions on Kenyan rangelands affects populations at local and regional scales. Combining mortality records with spatial analysis ar…

Rosie Woodroffe, Laurence G. Frank · Animal Conservation · 2005

Creel and Creel demonstrated that African wild dog populations are limited not by prey scarcity but by competition with lions and spotted hyenas, which kill dogs and steal their kills. Analyzing demog…

Creel, S. & Creel, N.M. · Conservation Biology · 1996

Ogada and colleagues conducted a controlled comparison of husbandry practices on Laikipia ranches in Kenya to identify which measures reduce predation by lions, leopards, hyenas, and cheetahs. By corr…

Maurice O. Ogada, Rosie Woodroffe, Nicholas O. Oguge, Laurence G. Frank · Conservation Biology · 2003

This continental assessment combined population data from across Africa to show that lion numbers have fallen sharply in most regions, with West, Central, and East African populations in steep decline…

Bauer H, Chapron G, Nowell K, et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2015

Packer and colleagues analysed more than 800 lion attacks on people across rural Tanzania between 1990 and 2004, one of the largest quantitative datasets on big-cat predation on humans. They found att…

Craig Packer, Dennis Ikanda, Bernard Kissui, Hadas Kushnir · Nature · 2005

Hazzah, Borgerhoff Mulder, and Frank investigated the social and economic drivers of lion killing among Maasai communities near Amboseli, Kenya, and assessed an incentive-based compensation scheme. Th…

Leela Hazzah, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Laurence Frank · Biological Conservation · 2009

Kissui quantified livestock losses to lions, leopards, and spotted hyenas across Maasai households in northern Tanzania and linked those losses to retaliatory killing of carnivores. Using household su…

Bernard M. Kissui · Animal Conservation · 2008

In this follow-up, Durant used experimental playbacks and detailed observation to show that Serengeti cheetahs actively avoid lions and spotted hyenas at fine spatial and temporal scales, moving away…

Durant, S.M. · Behavioral Ecology · 2000

This landmark analysis showed that the size of a male lion coalition strongly predicts its tenure over prides and its lifetime reproductive output. Larger coalitions, often formed by littermates or co…

Bygott, J. D., Bertram, B. C. R., Hanby, J. P. · Nature · 1979

This study combined ancient and modern mitochondrial DNA to reconstruct the lion's maternal history, including extinct populations such as the Barbary and Cape lions. The authors used a spatially expl…

Barnett R, Yamaguchi N, Shapiro B, et al. · BMC Evolutionary Biology · 2014

An early molecular study of the big cats that used mitochondrial 12S rRNA and cytochrome b sequences to probe relationships within the Panthera group. This work was among the first to apply DNA sequen…

Janczewski DN, Modi WS, Stephens JC, O'Brien SJ · Molecular Biology and Evolution · 1995

Cooper examined why lions live in groups by testing whether larger groups better retain their kills against kleptoparasitic spotted hyenas. Observations showed that single or paired lions frequently l…

Cooper, S.M. · African Journal of Ecology · 1991

Challenging the assumption that FIV is harmless in its natural hosts, this study examined wild African lions for clinical and pathological signs associated with feline immunodeficiency virus infection…

M. E. Roelke, J. Pecon-Slattery, S. Taylor, et al. · Virology · 2009

Sinclair, Mduma and Brashares tested why some Serengeti ungulate species are regulated by predation while others are limited by food, using long-term data across the migratory and resident herbivore c…

Sinclair, A.R.E., Mduma, S. & Brashares, J.S. · Nature · 2003

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

Gartner, Powell and Weiss applied systematic personality assessment to four felid species, having keepers rate individuals on behavioural traits and then analysing the underlying structure. They ident…

Gartner MC, Powell DM, Weiss A · Journal of Comparative Psychology · 2014

This study used mitochondrial and nuclear markers across the lion's range to map genetic structure and found a deep division between northern lions (West and Central Africa plus Asia) and southern lio…

Bertola LD, Jongbloed H, van der Gaag KJ, et al. · Scientific Reports · 2016

Owen-Smith and Mills assembled a detailed predation web for Kruger National Park, quantifying which predators kill which prey and in what proportions across the size spectrum. They mapped how lion, le…

Owen-Smith, N. & Mills, M.G.L. · Journal of Animal Ecology · 2008

This synthesis pulled together the individual prey-preference analyses for lion, leopard, cheetah, spotted hyena and wild dog to quantify dietary overlap across the African large-carnivore guild. By c…

Hayward, M.W. & Kerley, G.I.H. · South African Journal of Wildlife Research · 2008

A foundational quantitative analysis of what lions actually select to kill versus what is merely available. Hayward and Kerley compiled prey records from across Africa and weighted them against prey a…

Hayward, M.W. & Kerley, G.I.H. · Journal of Zoology · 2005