🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Cats are obligate carnivores with a metabolism evolved for a strictly meat-based diet, giving them distinctive nutritional requirements including high protein needs, dependence on preformed nutrients…

Research into why cats find silver vine and catnip rewarding has pointed to the involvement of the body's opioid system. This overview surveys evidence that the rubbing and rolling response engages en…

Phonetic research has begun to dissect the structure of cat vocalizations as if they were speech-like sounds, examining pitch contours, vowel-like qualities and prosody. This overview surveys work, in…

A widely repeated idea holds that the low frequencies of cat purring stimulate bone density and tissue repair, sometimes invoked to explain why cats purr when injured or stressed. This overview survey…

Night vision depends not only on rods but on a dedicated downstream circuit that carries their signals into the rest of the retina. This survey reviews the rod bipolar to AII amacrine cell pathway, a…

Cats are crepuscular hunters whose retinas are heavily biased toward rod photoreceptors, the cells that mediate vision in dim light. Comparative anatomy suggests the feline retina carries roughly twen…

If cats form attachments, their owners might serve as a secure base that buffers stress in novel or threatening situations. This overview surveys research testing the secure-base effect in cats, inclu…

The idea that cats domesticated themselves holds that wildcats with reduced fear of humans gained access to abundant rodents and food scraps, reproduced more successfully near settlements, and thereby…

Early-life experience profoundly shapes how friendly and confident a cat becomes, and research has identified a sensitive period in kittenhood, roughly between two and seven or eight weeks, when expos…

Kittens have an early sensitive period during which experiences shape their lifelong sociability, and this overview surveys research defining it. It examines classic and later work indicating that rou…

Eyes cannot maximize both light sensitivity and spatial detail at once, and the cat is a textbook example of how a nocturnal predator resolves that conflict. This survey examines the structural choice…

Early kittenhood includes a sensitive socialization period during which sensory and social experiences strongly shape later behavior. This overview surveys the sensory socialization window, a phase in…

Cats can modify their purr to make it more compelling, and this overview reviews the solicitation purr. Research found that when seeking food or attention, some cats embed a higher-pitched, infant-cry…

The vertical tail-up posture is one of the most studied visual signals in domestic cats and is widely interpreted as a friendly intention signal that precedes approach, allorubbing, and amicable inter…

The raised, vertical tail is one of the clearest visual signals in cat social behaviour, and this overview surveys research establishing it as a friendly, affiliative display. It examines studies, inc…

Quantum efficiency describes the fraction of incoming photons that produce a useful visual signal, and the tapetum raises that fraction by recycling light. This overview surveys how the tapetum, toget…

The tapetum lucidum is a reflective layer behind the cat retina that bounces light back through the photoreceptors, giving the eye a second chance to capture each photon and producing the familiar glo…

Cats possess a third eyelid, the nictitating membrane, and this overview reviews its anatomy and function. This translucent fold sweeps across the eye from the inner corner, helping spread tears, clea…

Before legal antiviral products existed, owners desperate to save cats with FIP obtained unregulated GS-441524 through informal networks and online communities, often coordinating dosing with sympathe…

Among terrestrial mammals, cats have one of the highest upper hearing limits, extending well into the ultrasonic range. This overview surveys audiogram data placing the feline ceiling far above the ro…

Balance and spatial orientation in cats depend on the vestibular system of the inner ear, including the semicircular canals that sense rotation. This overview surveys the structure and function of the…

To keep vision stable as the head moves, the vestibulo-ocular reflex rotates the eyes opposite to head motion, and this reflex has been studied extensively in cats. This overview surveys the feline ve…

Alongside the area centralis, the cat retina has a horizontally elongated band of higher ganglion cell density known as the visual streak. This overview surveys the role of the visual streak, which pr…

Domestic cats produce a diverse set of vocalisations that researchers have grouped into categories such as murmurs made with a closed mouth, including purrs and trills, vowel-pattern calls such as the…

Each feline whisker sits in a follicle-sinus complex, a specialized structure packed with mechanoreceptors and blood-filled sinuses that transduce whisker movement into nerve signals. This overview su…

Cats are often noted for an exceptionally large ratio between their fully constricted and fully dilated pupil areas, a consequence of the slit geometry. This overview surveys measurements and discussi…

Many cats rock or wiggle their hindquarters just before pouncing, and this overview reviews proposed explanations for this behaviour. Suggestions include priming the leg muscles for an explosive launc…

Cats maintain a stable body temperature across varied conditions, and this overview reviews their thermoregulatory strategies. Cats balance heat production and loss through behaviour, circulation, and…

Newborn kittens cannot regulate their body temperature well and depend on sensing warmth to stay close to their mother and littermates. This overview surveys neonatal thermotaxis, the tendency of youn…

Thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency causes serious neurologic disease in cats, including ataxia, seizures, and a characteristic ventroflexion of the neck, and has occurred from diets high in thiaminase-c…