🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This overview surveys efforts to reconstruct the coat colour and appearance of the cave lion using frozen cubs and ancient DNA. The preserved fur of permafrost specimens provides direct evidence of pe…

This overview examines studies of genetic diversity and population structure within the cave lion, based on ancient DNA from specimens spanning the species' range and time depth. Such analyses have re…

This overview examines depictions of cave lions in Upper Paleolithic art, most famously the powerful panel of lions at Chauvet Cave in France, along with engravings and figurines from across Ice Age E…

This overview examines why reconstructing the relationships among the living big cats has proven difficult, with different genes and analyses sometimes yielding conflicting trees. The lion, leopard, a…

This overview examines genetic and fossil evidence bearing on when the cave lion lineage split from the ancestors of modern lions. Ancient DNA studies estimate that Panthera spelaea diverged from the…

The Indian subcontinent hosts two recognized leopard subspecies, the Indian leopard of the mainland and the Sri Lankan leopard isolated on its island. This overview examines the evidence distinguishin…

Vocal abilities are distributed across the felid family tree in informative ways, and this overview reviews the evolution of cat vocal anatomy. Mapping hyoid structure and laryngeal features onto feli…

The clouded leopard, long treated as a single species, was shown by genetic and morphological analysis to comprise two distinct species: the mainland clouded leopard and the Sunda clouded leopard of B…

The snow leopard inhabits the high mountains of Central and South Asia and is the most basal or near-basal member of the genus Panthera in many analyses. This overview surveys genomic studies examinin…

This overview surveys the distribution of the American lion across Pleistocene North America, where its fossils are known largely from areas south of the great continental ice sheets, extending into p…

Because modern cats radiated rapidly, different genes often disagree about the branching order of species, a phenomenon known as incomplete lineage sorting that arises when ancestral polymorphisms per…

This overview surveys what stable isotope and dental studies reveal about the diet of Panthera atrox. By analysing carbon and nitrogen values in the bone collagen of American lions alongside contempor…

This overview surveys stable isotope studies of cave lion diet, which use carbon and nitrogen values in bone collagen to identify the prey of Panthera spelaea across Ice Age Eurasia and Beringia. Seve…

This overview examines the remarkable dispersal history of the lion lineage, which spread from an African and Eurasian heartland across the Northern Hemisphere during the Pleistocene. Cave lions, Pant…

The redrawing of lion subspecies along a north-south axis has direct regulatory consequences under CITES and the Red List. This overview explains how the recognition of the northern subspecies Panther…

This overview focuses on what Paleolithic depictions and frozen specimens suggest about whether male cave lions had manes and how the animals behaved socially. Cave art rarely shows the prominent mane…

This overview reviews the quantitative methods palaeontologists use to estimate the body mass of extinct cats such as Smilodon, Homotherium, and Panthera atrox. Because soft tissue is not preserved, r…

This overview surveys the recovery and analysis of complete mitochondrial genomes from cave lion fossils, which have helped pin down the position of Panthera spelaea within the lion radiation. Mitogen…

Estimating when cat lineages diverged requires calibrating molecular substitution rates against the fossil record, a process fraught with uncertainty when fossils are sparse. This overview surveys how…

This overview examines how molecular clocks, calibrated with fossils, have been used to estimate when the living big cats diverged from one another. Genetic studies place the origin of the Panthera li…

The Panthera lineage contains the roaring cats and their relatives and represents the earliest branch of the modern felid radiation. This overview surveys genetic and fossil evidence for an Asian orig…

Purring is not unique to the domestic cat, and its distribution across felids has long been used to divide the family. This overview surveys the traditional contrast between purring cats, which cannot…

This overview examines how researchers reconstruct the hunting behaviour of the cave lion from anatomy, isotopes, prey associations, and prehistoric art. Skeletal proportions indicate a powerful ambus…

This overview surveys efforts to reconstruct how Panthera atrox looked, including the contentious question of whether males bore a mane like modern African lions. Because the American lion descends fr…

This overview explains why the Rancho La Brea asphalt seeps preserve such an extraordinary concentration of sabertooths and other carnivores. Natural petroleum seeping to the surface forms sticky asph…

The American lion, Panthera atrox, was one of the largest cats ever to live, roaming Pleistocene North America south of the ice sheets. This overview surveys ancient-DNA evidence indicating that the A…

This overview examines the record of Panthera atrox at Rancho La Brea, where the American lion is far less common than the sabertooth Smilodon but is nonetheless represented by valuable cranial and po…

The Amur leopard of the Russian Far East and northeast China is one of the rarest cats on Earth and a clearly recognized subspecies, Panthera pardus orientalis. This overview reviews the genetic and m…

The critically endangered Arabian leopard, Panthera pardus nimr, is the smallest leopard subspecies and survives in tiny, fragmented populations on the Arabian Peninsula. This overview examines its ta…

The Javan leopard, Panthera pardus melas, is an isolated and threatened population restricted to the island of Java, frequently melanistic. This overview reviews evidence for its status as a distinct…