🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

The ocelot population in south Texas is one of the most endangered cat populations in the United States, and vehicle collisions are a primary threat, making road ecology central to its survival. This…

Behavioral observations and field sign surveys describe how ocelots advertise territory and reproductive state through scent. This overview draws together accounts of urine spraying, fecal deposition…

The remnant ocelot population of south Texas, numbering only a few dozen animals, persists in dense thornscrub fragments amid expanding agriculture, ranchettes and highways. This overview synthesises…

The ocelot and margay are widespread Neotropical cats whose phylogeography reveals how rainforest history structured small felid populations. This overview surveys studies showing pronounced genetic s…

Habitat loss and fragmentation increasingly isolate cat populations into small patches separated by inhospitable terrain, reducing effective population size and gene flow. This overview surveys how co…

Rivers, streams, and the vegetated strips along them often serve as natural movement corridors for cats, offering cover, water, prey, and continuous habitat threading through otherwise open or develop…

Across the range, and acutely in Texas, vehicle collisions are a leading documented cause of ocelot death. This overview gathers studies linking roads to direct mortality and to the subtler barrier ef…

Agroforestry systems such as shade coffee and cacao, along with tree plantations and pasture-forest mosaics, can provide partial habitat for ocelots, margays, oncillas and jaguarundis across Latin Ame…

As agriculture and settlement advance into Neotropical forests, small cats face habitat loss, road mortality, retaliatory killing over poultry depredation, and competition with free-ranging dogs. This…

Where multiple cat species coexist, smaller felids often adjust their use of space and time to avoid larger, dominant competitors, and camera-trap data are a primary means of detecting these interacti…

Different cat species carry different natural marks, tiger stripes, leopard and jaguar rosettes, ocelot chains, cheetah spots, and pattern-matching software exploits these to identify individuals semi…

The Andean mountain cat, Leopardus jacobita, is a rare, high-altitude felid of the Andes and one of the least known cats in the Americas. This overview examines its taxonomic placement within the ocel…

Most cats share a conserved chromosome number, but the ocelot lineage is distinguished by a reduced karyotype resulting from a chromosomal fusion. This overview explains how Leopardus species carry 36…

The small cats of the ocelot lineage are unusual within the otherwise karyotypically conservative cat family for having a reduced chromosome number, the result of an ancestral chromosome fusion. This…

Molecular phylogenetics partitions all living cats into eight monophyletic lineages, a framework that now organizes felid taxonomy. This overview names and characterizes them: the Panthera lineage (bi…

Modern cats are divided into eight monophyletic lineages: the Panthera lineage (lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, snow leopards, clouded leopards), the bay cat lineage, the caracal lineage, the ocelot…

At the northern edge of the range, fewer than a hundred ocelots persist in two small populations in deep south Texas, making them among the most endangered cats in the United States. This overview com…

The ocelot lineage comprises the small spotted cats of the Americas, nearly all placed in the genus Leopardus, and represents a relatively recent and rapid radiation. This overview surveys the group,…

Small wild cats, servals, ocelots, fishing cats, sand cats, margays and others, are widely held yet receive less welfare research attention than big cats. This overview surveys their husbandry needs:…

Wildlife crossings, from large vegetated overpasses to underpasses and culverts, are a primary engineering response to the roads that fragment felid populations near cities. This overview synthesises…

Road mortality is a major threat to ocelots and other small cats in developing landscapes, prompting investment in crossing structures, fencing and culvert modifications. This overview synthesises eva…

This synthesis reviews the conservation standing of the margay, generally regarded as facing elevated risk owing to its dependence on intact forest, low reproductive rate, and naturally low density. I…

This synthesis reviews the conservation standing of the ocelot, globally assessed as a species of relatively low extinction risk yet under steady pressure from deforestation, the historical fur trade,…

This influential study reconstructed the molecular phylogeny of all living cat species and dated their diversification, establishing the framework of eight major felid lineages used ever since. Using…

Johnson WE, Eizirik E, Pecon-Slattery J, et al. · Science · 2006