🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This study used molecular markers to assess genetic variation across the puma's enormous range from Canada to Patagonia and found surprisingly low diversity in North America. The authors concluded tha…

Culver M, Johnson WE, Pecon-Slattery J, O'Brien SJ · Journal of Heredity · 2000

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

Riley and colleagues used GPS telemetry and genetics to show that the small puma population in the Santa Monica Mountains was severely isolated by surrounding freeways, with the 101 in particular near…

Seth P. D. Riley, Laurel E. K. Serieys, John P. Pollinger, Jeffrey A. Sikich, Lisa Dalbeck, Robert K. Wayne, Holly B. Ernest · Current Biology · 2014

Williams and colleagues built custom SMART collars combining GPS, accelerometers, and physiological calibration to measure, for the first time, the moment-to-moment energy expenditure of wild pumas as…

Terrie M. Williams, Lisa Wolfe, Tracy Davis, Traci Kendall, Beau Richter, Yiwei Wang, Caleb Bryce, G. Hugh Elkaim, Christopher C. Wilmers · Science · 2014

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

Ripple and Beschta documented a striking felid-driven trophic cascade by contrasting heavily visited Zion Canyon, where human presence depressed cougars, with a nearby low-visitation canyon where coug…

Ripple, W.J. & Beschta, R.L. · Biological Conservation · 2006

This camera-trap study in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California examined how mesopredators adjusted their spatial and temporal activity in response to both pumas and human development. The authors fo…

Wang Y, Allen ML, Wilmers CC · Biological Conservation · 2015

Building on long-term tracking of marked mountain lions, this study described how pumas organize their use of space through a land-tenure system maintained largely by mutual avoidance. Resident adults…

Seidensticker, J. C., Hornocker, M. G., Wiles, W. V., Messick, J. P. · Wildlife Monographs · 1973

This study sequenced complete genomes of pumas from across the Americas to examine how range-wide demographic history shaped genetic load and diversity. The authors confirmed the deep divergence betwe…

Nedda F. Saremi, Beth Shapiro, et al. · Nature Communications · 2019

Elbroch and colleagues documented how pumas function as ecosystem engineers by provisioning rich, dependable carrion. Monitoring puma kills with cameras, they recorded a large diversity of vertebrate…

Elbroch, L.M. et al. · Biological Conservation · 2017

This study examined how a guild of mammalian carnivores responds to habitat fragmentation in southern California, finding that species differ markedly in their sensitivity to isolation and patch size,…

Crooks, K.R. · Conservation Biology · 2002

During COVID-19 lockdowns, reports emerged worldwide of wildlife, including pumas, venturing into emptied urban areas, and this overview examines what such incursions suggest about felid responses to…

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…

High-resolution GPS tracking combined with accelerometers and other biologgers has transformed the study of how felids behave near people, enabling fine-scale analysis of movement, activity, energetic…

This overview synthesizes a body of GPS-telemetry research that transformed understanding of puma ecology by intensively visiting location clusters to study predation, competition, and social behavior…

An overview of how the advent of GPS telemetry transformed estimation of kill rates for solitary cats such as pumas, leopards and lynx. The approach identifies spatial clusters of frequent locations,…

The extinct American cheetah of the genus Miracinonyx superficially resembled the living cheetah, with adaptations for fast pursuit of swift prey such as the pronghorn. This overview surveys genetic a…

P-22 was a male puma collared by the National Park Service after he made an improbable journey across two of Los Angeles's busiest freeways, the 405 and the 101, to settle in tiny Griffith Park beside…

P-22 became the most famous urban mountain lion in the world after crossing two of the busiest freeways in the United States to settle in Griffith Park, a small island of habitat surrounded by central…

This overview describes the integrated collar architecture that combined GPS with an inertial measurement unit of accelerometers and magnetometers to study puma movement and energetics at fine resolut…

Serosurveys consistently reveal high Toxoplasma exposure in wild felids, reflecting their role as both definitive hosts and predators of infected prey. This overview synthesizes prevalence patterns ac…

Even in the GPS era, VHF remains indispensable for one task: signaling death. This overview describes mortality-mode beacons that change pulse rate when a collar stops moving for a set interval, alert…

Sylvatic plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, circulates among rodents in the American West, and mountain lions become exposed by preying on infected rodents and lagomorphs. This overview…

A survey of how cats do not take prey at random but select particular age and sex classes, with consequences for prey populations. Felids frequently kill disproportionately young, old or otherwise vul…

Unlike many viruses spread by casual contact, feline immunodeficiency virus is transmitted chiefly through biting during fights, tying its epidemiology to felid social behavior. This overview surveys…

Camera collars turn a tracked animal into a first-person observer, recording short video or still bursts that reveal behavior invisible to GPS dots. This overview describes how researchers have mounte…

A survey of how restoring large cats to systems where they were lost can rekindle anti-predator behavior in prey and reinstate top-down effects. Where prey have lived without predators, they may becom…

Some Toxoplasma infections in southern sea otters involve unusual atypical genotypes, including a so-called Type X strain rarely seen in domestic cats. This overview surveys research suggesting that w…

Pumas living near urban areas adjust where, when and how they move, feed and rest in response to human presence and the built environment. This overview synthesises telemetry and GPS-cluster research,…

As apex predators, big cats can exert top-down control that ripples through ecosystems via trophic cascades. This overview synthesizes evidence that lions, tigers, leopards, pumas, and jaguars influen…