🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Cooperation is rare among felids, concentrated in the social lion and in cheetah and feral-cat male coalitions, making the family a useful contrast for theories of cooperation. This overview surveys r…

Before springing, a cat crouches and gathers itself, and this overview reviews the role of this countermovement in jump performance. The preparatory crouch loads the hindlimb muscles and tendons and a…

A cat digestive tract reflects its meat diet, and this overview reviews how carnivore gut anatomy suits processing animal tissue. Cats have a relatively short, simple intestine compared with herbivore…

Cats walk on their toes, a digitigrade posture that lengthens the effective limb and changes the geometry of force transmission. This overview reviews how toe-walking affects stride length, speed pote…

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…

Recent research suggests some mammals, possibly including cats, transmit ultraviolet light to the retina, and this overview reviews the evidence and its uncertainty for felids. Studies of ocular media…

How cats drink became a notable physics question, and this overview reviews the mechanics of feline lapping and its place in water balance. Research showed that cats lap by darting the tongue tip onto…

Cooling and water conservation can conflict, and this overview reviews how desert cats navigate evaporative water loss. Cats cool partly by evaporation, through panting and through saliva spread by gr…

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 feline commitment to meat is an evolutionary story, and this overview reviews how hypercarnivory and its metabolic specialisations arose in the cat lineage. As cats specialised on vertebrate prey,…

Protrusible, sheathed claws are a hallmark of the cat family and a few relatives, and this overview reviews their evolutionary origin and significance. The mechanism likely co-evolved with the felid s…

Sabertoothed cats vanished in the late Pleistocene alongside much of the large-mammal fauna, and this overview reviews hypotheses for their extinction and its significance. Proposed drivers include th…

The colour of cat eyeshine varies, and this overview reviews how tapetal structure and composition produce different reflected hues across individuals and species. The layered, crystalline tapetum act…

Cats move through a sequence of gaits as speed rises, from a walk to a trot, then to bounding and galloping forms. This overview describes the footfall patterns, duty factors, and energetic and stabil…

Cats are not colour-blind, but they see colour differently from humans, and this overview reviews the evidence for feline dichromacy. With two main cone types, cats are thought to perceive a more limi…

Body temperature is actively defended around a set point, and this overview reviews how cats regulate temperature during illness and fever. When fighting infection, the body can raise its thermoregula…

Finite-element analysis models a skull as a mesh of elements and predicts how stresses distribute under loads, and this overview surveys its application to cat crania. By simulating canine bites, stru…

The flehmen response, in which a cat draws back its lips, opens its mouth, and appears to grimace, delivers chemical signals to the vomeronasal organ in the roof of the mouth for processing of non-vol…

A cat keeps its coat functional through maintenance, and this overview reviews waterproofing and coat care. Sebaceous glands coat the hairs with oils that help repel water and keep the fur in conditio…

Sabertoothed cats needed extraordinary jaw gapes to bring their long canines to bear, and this overview reviews how their jaw mechanics achieved this. Estimates place maximum gape far beyond that of a…

Grooming serves a thermoregulatory function, and this overview reviews how spreading saliva helps cats shed heat. When warm, cats may groom more, depositing saliva on the fur that then evaporates and…

Even strict carnivores host gut microbes, and this overview reviews what is known about the feline gut microbiome and its role in a meat diet. The cat intestinal microbial community is adapted to a hi…

Cats need more dietary protein than many mammals, and this overview reviews the metabolic basis. Feline liver enzymes that break down amino acids for energy operate at a relatively high, less adjustab…

The power for a jump comes largely from the hindlimb extensors, and this overview reviews how their architecture supports explosive movement. Large muscles crossing the hip, knee, and ankle, with fibr…

Cats can cover impressive horizontal distances in a single bound, and this overview reviews the biomechanics of the broad jump. Achieving distance requires a takeoff that balances upward and forward v…

Purring is a distinctive feline vocalisation produced continuously through inhalation and exhalation, and this overview reviews how it is generated. The leading view holds that rapid, rhythmic contrac…

The force of a cat bite comes from its jaw-closing muscles, chiefly the temporalis and masseter, and this overview reviews their arrangement and relative emphasis. In cats the temporalis is strongly d…

A short, powerful jaw bites hard but opens less widely, and this overview reviews the gape-versus-force trade-off in cats and its consequences. Wide gape helps clear large canines and seize big prey,…

Kittens are not born able to leap accurately, and this overview reviews how jumping ability develops through growth and play. As kittens grow, their muscles strengthen, limb proportions change, and ne…

Coming down safely is as important as getting up, and this overview reviews how cats absorb the impact of landing. On touchdown the limbs flex to lengthen the deceleration and spread the force over ti…