🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Cats are exquisitely sensitive to a lack of dietary arginine, and this overview reviews why. Arginine is essential to the urea cycle that disposes of nitrogen waste from protein breakdown, and because…

The prominent whiskers on a cat's muzzle, the mystacial vibrissae, are arranged in an orderly grid of rows and columns on each side of the face. This overview surveys their typical number and layout,…

Artificial insemination offers a way to move cheetah genetics between institutions and to breed animals that will not pair naturally, but it remains technically challenging in this species. This overv…

Pregnancy rates from artificial insemination in wild cats remain modest and variable, reflecting the biological and technical challenges of the procedure. This overview surveys reported success rates…

Artificial light at night is a pervasive feature of cities that can disrupt the nocturnal felids most reliant on darkness for hunting and movement. This overview synthesises research on how light poll…

This overview examines how the extinction risk of small wildcats is assessed and the difficulties involved. Status assessments draw on distribution, population size and trend, habitat, and threats to…

Modern welfare science increasingly seeks not just to minimise suffering but to promote positive emotional states, yet measuring positive affect in cats is challenging. This overview surveys approache…

Because climate is shifting where suitable Iberian lynx habitat will lie, conservationists have debated assisted colonization, deliberately establishing populations in areas projected to become suitab…

When species cannot track shifting climate fast enough, assisted migration, deliberately moving them to newly suitable areas, is debated as a last resort. This overview surveys the arguments for and a…

Assisted reproductive technologies, including artificial insemination, semen and embryo cryopreservation, and in vitro fertilization, have been applied to felids to support captive breeding and conser…

The ocelot has served as a focus for applying assisted-reproduction techniques to a small spotted cat of conservation concern. This overview surveys reproductive research on ocelots, including reprodu…

The critically endangered Iberian lynx has been the focus of an intensive conservation breeding program supported by reproductive science. This overview surveys assisted-reproduction efforts for the s…

When some individuals in a group reproduce while others are suppressed, the resulting asymmetry reflects social and physiological mechanisms regulating reproduction. This overview surveys asymmetric r…

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…

Newborn kittens cannot hear well because their ear canals are closed at birth, and hearing develops over the following weeks. This overview surveys feline auditory development, beginning with the open…

Sound is an often-overlooked feature of the captive environment, and research has examined whether auditory enrichment can calm cats in shelters and veterinary settings. This overview surveys studies…

Estimating snow leopard home ranges is especially vulnerable to the autocorrelation problem because dense GPS fixes from a slow-ranging mountain cat are highly correlated, and this overview examines t…

Classic home-range estimators assume that successive locations are statistically independent, an assumption that high-frequency GPS data violate flagrantly, since fixes minutes apart are highly correl…

Babesia are tick-transmitted protozoa that infect red blood cells and can cause anemia, and they have featured prominently in felid disease, most dramatically in the drought-linked mortality of Sereng…

Researchers sometimes attract animals to cameras using food bait, scent lures, visual attractants, or scratching posts to increase detection rates and obtain better-posed, identifiable images. This ov…

Cats are renowned for poise on fences, branches, and ledges, and this overview reviews how they maintain dynamic balance on narrow or unstable substrates. The tail acts as a counterbalance and inertia…

Managing captive felid populations requires balancing genetic goals, such as retaining diversity, against demographic goals, such as maintaining stable numbers and age structure. This overview surveys…

The greatest source of variability in kernel home-range estimates is the smoothing bandwidth, and this overview surveys the competing approaches and their pitfalls. The reference bandwidth tends to ov…

How much energy a cat needs at rest and in daily life is fundamental to its biology, and this overview reviews feline basal metabolic rate and energy expenditure. Like other mammals, cat metabolic rat…

Successful reproduction in captivity depends not only on physiology but on appropriate behavior, including mate recognition, courtship, and competent maternal care. This overview surveys how behaviora…

Camera traps are intended to observe wildlife unobtrusively, but white flashes, audible shutter or focus sounds, and infrared glow can be detected by animals and alter their behavior, raising both dat…

Domestication reshaped cat behavior, reducing fear of humans and increasing tolerance and sociability, and genetics is beginning to reveal the underlying changes. This overview surveys evidence that s…

Behaviour offers a rich, non-invasive window into felid welfare, but interpreting it requires care. This overview surveys the behavioural signs used to assess captive cats: stereotypic pacing and rout…

Beyond anatomy and genetics, behavioral tests reveal how keenly cats can detect and discriminate odors. This overview surveys studies and observations of feline olfactory acuity, including the use of…

Because cats evolved to conceal vulnerability, they display pain through subtle behavioral changes rather than obvious distress, and research has cataloged the signs, including reduced activity and ju…