🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Cats develop individually distinctive meows, and owners gradually learn to interpret their own cat's calls better than strangers do. This overview surveys research on acoustic individuality in cat voc…

Vomeronasal sensory neurons express specialized receptor families, often termed V1R and V2R types, that detect pheromones and related chemical cues. This overview surveys what is known about these rec…

Descended from desert-adapted ancestors, cats have a relatively low thirst drive and historically obtained much of their water from prey, leading to research interest in how diet form, dry versus wet…

Weaning marks the shift from dependence on maternal milk to consuming solid prey, a gradual transition whose timing varies with species and circumstances. This overview surveys weaning ages across the…

The brain devotes substantial tissue to processing whisker input, and this overview reviews how vibrissal touch is represented in the feline somatosensory cortex. The orderly array of muzzle whiskers…

Because whiskers are so sensitive, repeated or unavoidable contact can be uncomfortable, a concern raised in discussions of so-called whisker fatigue or stress, particularly around deep food bowls. Th…

Even with excellent night vision, cats encounter conditions too dark or too close for their eyes, and here whiskers take over as the primary spatial sense. This overview surveys how cats use vibrissae…

A cat's facial whiskers, or vibrissae, are mobile tactile sensors that play a crucial role in the final moments of prey capture, when vision is too close to focus. This overview surveys research showi…

A long-standing idea holds that a cat uses its whiskers to gauge whether it can fit through a gap, and this overview reviews the spatial-sensing functions of vibrissae. Because the mystacial whiskers…

When a cat captures prey, it must deliver a precise killing bite, often to the nape, and whiskers help guide that final action at a range where vision fails. This overview surveys evidence and observa…

A long-standing idea holds that a cat's whiskers roughly span the width of its body, helping it judge whether it can fit through a gap. This overview surveys the concept of whisker-based gap detection…

Although domestic cats have vertical-slit pupils, large felids such as lions and tigers have round pupils, a contrast that has attracted scientific attention. This overview surveys the explanation tie…

Many owners are puzzled when their well-fed cat carries dead or live prey indoors. This overview surveys the leading interpretations, including the transport of prey to a safe location for consumption…

Human red-green color vision depends on having two long-wavelength cone types with closely spaced sensitivities, a feature most mammals lack. This survey reviews evidence that cats, as dichromats, can…

A persistent challenge in measuring cat predation is that animals cats bring home represent only part of what they kill. This overview surveys research, including studies using cameras, GPS and observ…

Memory supports navigation, hunting, and social recognition in cats, and this overview surveys research on its different forms. It covers short-term and working memory for object locations, the persis…

Cats develop a zonary, endotheliochorial placenta that forms a band around the fetus and mediates maternal-fetal exchange during gestation. This overview surveys the structure and development of the f…

This study tested how domestic cats respond to four plant materials known to elicit olfactory-driven reactions: silver vine, Tatarian honeysuckle, valerian root, and catnip. By presenting these materi…

Sebastiaan Bol, Jana Caspers, Lauren Buckingham, et al. · BMC Veterinary Research · 2017

This landmark study demonstrated that cats fed diets deficient in taurine developed progressive retinal degeneration leading to blindness, establishing taurine as a dietary essential for cats and reve…

Hayes KC, Carey RE, Schmidt SY · Science · 1975

This study tested a broad-spectrum coronavirus 3C-like protease inhibitor in cats with experimentally induced and naturally occurring FIP, showing that the drug could reverse progression of an otherwi…

Kim Y, Liu H, Galasiti Kankanamalage AC, Weerasekara S, Hua DH, Groutas WC, Chang KO, Pedersen NC · PLoS Pathogens · 2016

This foundational neuroscience study used kittens to reveal how early visual experience shapes the developing brain. By depriving one eye of normal vision during a critical period of early life and th…

Torsten N. Wiesel, David H. Hubel · Journal of Neurophysiology · 1963

Foreman-Worsley and Farnworth systematically reviewed the literature on how social and environmental conditions affect the welfare of indoor-housed cats. Surveying studies of housing density, resource…

Rachel Foreman-Worsley, Mark J. Farnworth · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · 2019

Vitale Shreve, Mehrkam and Udell ran a structured preference assessment to learn what most motivates cats, testing pet and shelter cats with stimuli from four categories: human social interaction, foo…

Kristyn R. Vitale Shreve, Lindsay R. Mehrkam, Monique A. R. Udell · Behavioural Processes · 2017

This detailed developmental study described how kittens in litters engage in social play, cataloguing motor patterns such as the belly-up, stand-up, pounce, and chase, and charting how their frequency…

Meredith West · American Zoologist · 1974

Merola and colleagues tested whether cats engage in social referencing, looking to a human for emotional information about an ambiguous situation. Cats and owners were presented with a potentially ala…

Isabella Merola, Marta Lazzaroni, Sarah Marshall-Pescini, Emanuela Prato-Previde · Animal Cognition · 2015

When confronted with an ambiguous, potentially frightening object such as a noisy fan, do cats look to their owner for guidance? In this experiment owners reacted to the object with either a positive…

Isabella Merola and colleagues · Animal Cognition · 2015

This study identified the gene responsible for the dramatic blotched coat of the king cheetah and the related variation between mackerel and blotched tabby patterns in domestic cats. The authors mappe…

Christopher B. Kaelin, Gregory S. Barsh, et al. · Science · 2012

Kaelin and colleagues uncovered the genetic and developmental basis of the tabby coat patterns that adorn domestic cats and their wild relatives. They identified the gene Taqpep, encoding a protease,…

Christopher B. Kaelin, Xiao Xu, Lewis Z. Hong, et al. · Science · 2012

Surveying owners of over two thousand pet cats, researchers used questionnaire ratings to identify five reliable personality dimensions, dubbed the Feline Five: neuroticism, extraversion, dominance, i…

Carla Litchfield and colleagues · PLOS ONE · 2017

This study traced the ancestry of the domestic cat by sampling wildcats across their range and comparing mitochondrial DNA from hundreds of wild and domestic individuals. The authors showed that all d…

Carlos A. Driscoll, Marilyn Menotti-Raymond, Stephen J. O'Brien, et al. · Science · 2007