🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Given the critically small wild population, captive breeding has been considered and attempted as a potential safeguard for the Asiatic cheetah, though with significant difficulty. This overview surve…

The critically endangered Amur leopard is supported by a coordinated captive breeding program intended to safeguard the subspecies and potentially supply animals for reinforcement. This overview surve…

Jaguars are powerful, semi-aquatic, wide-ranging cats whose captive welfare has been studied through behaviour and non-invasive stress physiology. This overview surveys research on captive jaguars: th…

Intensive captive lion breeding, associated in some regions with cub petting, walking-with-lions tourism, canned or captive hunting and the bone trade, has drawn extensive welfare and ethical scrutiny…

Snow leopards, adapted to cold, rugged, high-altitude terrain, present particular welfare considerations in captivity. This overview surveys their husbandry: the importance of elevated rocky structure…

Capture myopathy, a potentially fatal syndrome of muscle damage arising from the stress, exertion, and physiologic derangement of capture and restraint, is a recognized risk when immobilizing wild fel…

Telemetry studies describe the caracal as largely nocturnal and crepuscular, shifting toward stricter night activity where humans are present and showing more daytime movement in undisturbed or cooler…

Beyond the city edge, caracals occupy farmland and vineyards where predation on small livestock and game generates conflict and retaliatory killing across South Africa. This overview synthesises resea…

Caracals around Cape Town exploit a broad diet that shifts along the gradient from natural fynbos to vineyards and suburbs, taking native birds and mammals as well as human-associated prey such as int…

Dietary research portrays the caracal as a powerful, versatile predator able to take prey from small rodents to antelope several times its own weight. This overview synthesizes scat and kill studies i…

The caracal occupies one of the largest ranges of any small cat, spanning much of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and southwest and central Asia into India. This overview compiles distributional studie…

Across parts of Southern Africa and the Middle East, caracals are killed in large numbers as suspected predators of sheep and goats. This overview reviews studies quantifying the species role in lives…

The caracal muscular build, long hind limbs, and short tail equip it for explosive bursts and remarkable vertical leaps, and this overview reviews how form translates to function. Field and captive ob…

An overview of how the kills of large felids redistribute energy and nutrients through ecosystems. Carcasses and the cats' partly eaten remains create nutrient hotspots that fertilize soils and vegeta…

Cats possess sharp, blade-like carnassial teeth that shear flesh like scissors, and this overview surveys their structure and function. The carnassial pair, formed by an upper premolar and a lower mol…

In addition to facial whiskers, cats possess carpal vibrissae on the underside of the wrists, or carpi, of the forelegs. This overview surveys these lesser-known tactile hairs and their proposed role…

A survey of the diverse communities of vertebrates and invertebrates that exploit carcasses produced by cats, and how those carcasses structure scavenger interactions. Felid kills attract a succession…

Cities support large free-roaming cat populations sustained by food subsidies, and this overview surveys research on what determines their density and carrying capacity. It examines how food availabil…

An overview of the quantitative tools used to predict how many large predators a reserve can sustain from its prey base, building on the prey-preference and prey-biomass approaches. These models estim…

Cat allergy is common, driven largely by the protein Fel d 1, and this overview surveys the science of feline allergens and efforts to reduce human exposure. It examines how Fel d 1, produced in saliv…

Containing pet cats indoors or within enclosures is increasingly promoted to reduce wildlife predation, roaming-related cat mortality and disease, with some jurisdictions enacting curfews or containme…

Some jurisdictions, particularly in Australia and New Zealand, have introduced cat curfews or containment requirements to protect wildlife, and this overview surveys research on their rationale and ef…

Understanding what cats actually eat in the wild relies heavily on analyzing scats and stomach contents, and this overview surveys that body of dietary research. It examines how researchers identify p…

Cats produce a range of facial movements, and research increasingly treats these as communicative signals. This overview surveys work cataloguing feline facial expressions in affiliative, defensive an…

Companion animals are widely believed to benefit human health, and cats specifically have been the subject of epidemiological and psychological research. This overview surveys studies on associations…

The quality of the cat-human relationship depends on both the cat's and the owner's characteristics, and this overview surveys research linking feline personality to relationship outcomes. It covers h…

The environment shapes how and how much cats vocalize, with implications for welfare assessment. This overview surveys research comparing vocal behaviour of cats in shelters, catteries and homes, wher…

Outdoor enclosures, often called catios, and other containment systems offer a middle path between free roaming and strict indoor living. This overview surveys research and welfare reasoning on these…

The catnip response, a heritable reaction to nepetalactone causing sniffing, rubbing, rolling and a euphoric-seeming state, occurs in many domestic cats and some non-domestic felids. This overview sur…

Cats are the definitive host of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, shedding environmentally resistant oocysts that can infect other animals, and this overview surveys the resulting impacts on wildlife an…