🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This analysis combined available morphological and molecular characters to estimate a phylogeny for the cat family and to discuss patterns of speciation. Conducted before the genomic era, it represent…

Mattern MY, McLennan DA · Cladistics · 2000

Owen-Smith and Mills assembled a detailed predation web for Kruger National Park, quantifying which predators kill which prey and in what proportions across the size spectrum. They mapped how lion, le…

Owen-Smith, N. & Mills, M.G.L. · Journal of Animal Ecology · 2008

This paper introduced the daily diary concept, a multi-sensor logger recording tri-axial acceleration, magnetometry, and environmental variables at high frequency to reconstruct an animal's behavior a…

Rory P. Wilson, Emily L. C. Shepard, Nikolai Liebsch · Endangered Species Research · 2008

This study compared how a suite of carnivores, including bobcats, responded to the size and isolation of urban habitat fragments in coastal southern California. Bobcats and other area-sensitive specie…

Crooks KR · Conservation Biology · 2002

This study compared the outbred Serengeti lion population with the small, geographically isolated Ngorongoro Crater population, which descended from few founders and experienced inbreeding. The author…

Wildt DE, Bush M, Goodrowe KL, Packer C, Pusey AE, Brown JL, Joslin P, O'Brien SJ · Nature · 1987

This overview synthesizes telemetry research on African lion movement and pride ranging, drawing on long-term projects such as the Oxford-led study in and around Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. GPS co…

The Andean cat is one of the world's rarest and least-known felids, a small cat of the high Andes and Patagonian steppe whose study depends heavily on camera traps. This overview surveys the difficult…

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, CITES, governs cross-border trade in wildlife, and the world's big cats are listed on its Appendix I, banning commercial international trad…

An overview of how molecular analysis of prey DNA in faeces is transforming the study of cat diets. By sequencing prey genetic material recovered from scats, researchers can identify prey to species w…

Beyond scientific monitoring, dedicated wildlife photographers build custom DSLR camera-trap rigs to capture high-resolution, artfully lit images of elusive cats in their natural environment. This ove…

The Eurasian lynx, a larger relative of the Canada lynx, occupies forests across Europe and Asia where its future is shaped by both climate and intensive land use. This overview surveys how habitat-su…

Lentiviruses related to domestic-cat FIV circulate widely in wild felid species including lions, pumas, leopards, and others, often at high seroprevalence yet apparently with limited disease in their…

High-resolution GPS tracking combined with accelerometers and other biologgers has transformed the study of how felids behave near people, enabling fine-scale analysis of movement, activity, energetic…

Every GPS collar embodies a compromise: more frequent fixes reveal finer movement detail but drain the battery faster, shortening the tracking period. This overview examines how researchers schedule f…

Gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist implants offer a reversible method of suppressing reproduction in cats by downregulating the reproductive axis after an initial stimulation. This overview survey…

Gonadotropin-releasing hormone and its agonists are used to induce ovulation in cats by stimulating the pituitary to release luteinizing hormone, substituting for the natural mating stimulus. This ove…

Captive cheetahs suffer unusually high rates of chronic gastritis associated with Helicobacter infection, a condition far more severe than in most other felids and a significant cause of morbidity in…

Hepatozoon is a tick-associated protozoan parasite, transmitted not by tick bite but by ingestion of infected ticks, that commonly infects wild felids including lions. This overview surveys the biolog…

This overview surveys Hyperailurictis, the name applied to the North American Pseudaelurus-grade cats that represent the first true felids to colonize the continent after the cat gap. Arriving from Eu…

Key Biodiversity Areas are sites identified as significant for the global persistence of biodiversity, and they offer a framework for prioritizing places critical to big cats. This overview surveys re…

This overview examines the Nimravidae, an extinct family of cat-like carnivores that independently evolved sabertooth forms long before the true machairodont cats. Though strikingly similar to felids…

Many of the most important felid diseases, from distemper to leukemia virus to Toxoplasma, originate at the interface of domestic animals, wildlife and people, making them quintessential One Health pr…

Pallass cat is among the most distinctive felids, and this overview reviews the adaptations behind its stocky, flat-faced appearance. The species carries the densest and longest fur of any cat, insula…

Following the Bronx Zoo tigers, SARS-CoV-2 infections were confirmed in big cats at zoos and sanctuaries across multiple countries, including additional tigers, lions, snow leopards, pumas and others.…

Sarcocystis parasites cycle between predator definitive hosts and prey intermediate hosts, with felids shedding infective stages after eating cysts in muscle. This overview surveys the role of wild ca…

This overview examines Smilodon populator, the largest known sabertooth cat, which roamed the plains and woodlands of Pleistocene South America after felids crossed the Panamanian land bridge. Body-ma…

Snapshot Safari and Snapshot USA are large collaborative camera-trap networks that aggregate standardized surveys across many sites, in African reserves and across the United States respectively, to s…

Spirometra tapeworms use felids and other carnivores as definitive hosts, while their larval stages, known as spargana, infect a wide range of intermediate and paratenic hosts, including amphibians, r…

Toxocara cati and related ascarid roundworms are among the most common parasites of cats, with wild felids shedding eggs that contribute to environmental contamination and pose a zoonotic risk to peop…

Research into how Toxoplasma alters host behavior has implicated changes in neurotransmitter and hormone systems, particularly dopamine and testosterone. This overview surveys findings that the parasi…