🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Namibia holds one of the largest cheetah populations, much of it on commercial and communal farmland outside protected areas, and this overview synthesizes telemetry research on how cheetahs range acr…

Efforts to restore cheetahs to parts of their former range, including the introduction of African cheetahs to India, have raised ecological questions about translocation. This overview synthesizes the…

India, which lost its native Asiatic cheetahs to extinction in the mid-twentieth century, has undertaken a project to reintroduce cheetahs using animals sourced from Africa, released at Kuno National…

Namibia holds one of the world's largest cheetah populations, the majority living on commercial and communal farmland where conflict with livestock and game farmers is a primary threat. This overview…

Because cheetahs occur at naturally low densities and avoid areas with high lion and hyena numbers, most cheetahs live outside formal protected areas on farmland and communal rangelands. This overview…

Much of the world's remaining cheetah population lives outside protected areas on farmland, particularly in Namibia, where the ecology differs from the famous plains populations. This overview synthes…

This overview surveys human-cheetah conflict in Namibia, home to a large share of the world's cheetahs living largely outside protected areas on commercial and communal farmland. It reviews patterns o…

Beyond the mechanics of the flehmen response, felids use vomeronasal sampling to extract social information from scent marks. This overview surveys research on how cats assess reproductive status, ind…

Cats are common in households with children, and research has examined the developmental and welfare dimensions of these relationships. This overview surveys studies on how children form attachments t…

Beyond the familiar meow and purr, cats produce chirps, trills and chatters that figure in greeting, excitement and predatory contexts. This overview surveys efforts to build ethograms, systematic cat…

The cat family is notable for an unusually conserved karyotype, with most species sharing a similar chromosome number and arrangement that has changed little over the family's history. This overview s…

Captive cheetahs are notably prone to a severe chronic gastritis associated with Helicobacter infection, a condition far more debilitating in captive than in wild cheetahs, suggesting that stress, imm…

Chronic activation of the stress axis can suppress immunity, impair reproduction and contribute to disease, and several captive cat species show evidence of such chronic stress. This overview surveys…

Artificial light at night can disrupt the internal circadian clocks that govern activity, hormone cycles and reproduction in animals, with potential consequences for nocturnal carnivores. This overvie…

Circuit theory, which models animal movement as electrical current flowing across a resistance surface, has become a standard tool for mapping connectivity for wide-ranging cats. This overview surveys…

Citizen science, from sighting and roadkill reporting to camera-trap and tracking projects, has become a powerful tool for monitoring urban felids and engaging the public in coexistence. This overview…

Citizen science underpins much large-scale camera-trap work, from running cameras to classifying images, but harnessing volunteers reliably requires attention to data quality and sustained engagement.…

This overview examines one of the central operational challenges of compensation schemes: verifying that claimed livestock deaths were genuinely caused by the target predator. It synthesises methods,…

The degree of curvature in a claw correlates with how an animal uses it, and this overview reviews that relationship in cats. Strongly recurved claws favour gripping bark and branches and hooking into…

Cheetahs possess only partially retractable claws and hardened, ridged foot pads, features often likened to athletic cleats. This overview surveys how claw exposure and pad texture provide the tractio…

A claw is a keratin sheath grown over the terminal bone of the toe, and this overview surveys its structure, continuous growth, and the way cats shed worn outer layers. Scratching strips off the old h…

Scratching serves several functions at once, and this overview untangles them. Dragging the claws strips worn sheaths to maintain sharpness, stretches the limbs and back, and deposits both visual mark…

This overview surveys what the claw anatomy of sabertooth cats reveals about how they handled prey. Like living felids, machairodonts had retractile claws, but in robust dirk-toothed forms such as Smi…

Beyond climbing, claws are weapons, and this overview surveys their use in seizing prey and in fights among cats. Extended claws anchor struggling prey while the bite is delivered, and raking strikes…

Climate change is reshaping the distribution and intensity of wildlife disease, with implications for felids through effects on vectors, reservoirs and host stress. This overview surveys how warming a…

Climate change poses a distinctive threat to snow leopards by altering the high-mountain habitats they depend on. This overview synthesizes research projecting how warming may push the treeline and fo…

Snow leopards inhabit cold, high-elevation environments that are projected to shrink as climate warming pushes the treeline upward and alters alpine ecosystems. This overview surveys research modellin…

Climate change interacts with urbanisation to reshape the conditions felids face near cities, altering prey availability, water resources, heat exposure, fire regimes and the viability of corridors. T…

An overview of how a warming climate may disrupt the snowshoe hare cycle and the lynx that depend on it. Changes in snow cover threaten the seasonal camouflage of hares, potentially increasing their p…

Climate change poses varied threats to the world's cats, and assessing which species and populations are most vulnerable is increasingly important for prioritization. This overview surveys research on…