🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Though not a felid, the spotted hyena is the dominant competitor and kleptoparasite of African big cats, so its prey preferences are central to felid dynamics. Hayward compiled kill and diet records a…

Hayward, M.W. · Journal of Zoology · 2006

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

Using decades of individual life-history records from wild lions and baboons, this study tested whether females experience a true post-reproductive lifespan analogous to human menopause. The authors f…

Packer C, Tatar M, Collins A · Nature · 1998

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 worlds only wild Asiatic lions live in and around Gir in Gujarat, India, where their expanding population increasingly occupies agricultural land, villages and the periphery of towns. This overvie…

This overview surveys human-lion coexistence in India's Gir landscape, the last refuge of the Asiatic lion, where pastoralist Maldhari communities graze livestock within and around the protected fores…

Cecil was a male lion fitted with a GPS collar as part of a long-term Oxford-led research project in and around Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, whose illegal killing by a trophy hunter in 2015 drew wo…

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…

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…

Bovine tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium bovis, established itself in Kruger National Park after spilling from cattle into African buffalo, and lions preying on infected buffalo became widely expo…

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.…

Serosurveys consistently reveal high Toxoplasma exposure in wild felids, reflecting their role as both definitive hosts and predators of infected prey. This overview synthesizes prevalence patterns ac…

African lions and other wild felids can be infected with Trypanosoma, tsetse-transmitted protozoan parasites better known for causing sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in livestock. This overview…

A survey of how cats do not take prey at random but select particular age and sex classes, with consequences for prey populations. Felids frequently kill disproportionately young, old or otherwise vul…

Unlike many viruses spread by casual contact, feline immunodeficiency virus is transmitted chiefly through biting during fights, tying its epidemiology to felid social behavior. This overview surveys…

Allonursing, the nursing of non-offspring, is best documented in lions but reported in other group-living or colonial felid contexts, including domestic cat colonies. This overview surveys research on…

The Barbary lion of North Africa, extinct in the wild by the mid-twentieth century, was long thought to be a uniquely large and dark-maned subspecies. This overview surveys genetic work on museum spec…

The cave lion, Panthera spelaea, ranged across Ice Age Eurasia and Beringia and is known from abundant remains and even mummified cubs preserved in permafrost. This overview surveys ancient-DNA studie…

Anthrax, caused by the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis, periodically kills wildlife in African ecosystems, and lions and other scavenging felids become exposed by feeding on infected herbiv…

A survey of how restoring large cats to systems where they were lost can rekindle anti-predator behavior in prey and reinstate top-down effects. Where prey have lived without predators, they may becom…

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…

As apex predators, big cats can exert top-down control that ripples through ecosystems via trophic cascades. This overview synthesizes evidence that lions, tigers, leopards, pumas, and jaguars influen…

African carnivores, including lions, leopards and cheetahs, host a rich diversity of blood-borne parasites that molecular surveys continue to uncover. This overview surveys the diversity of hemoparasi…

Captive cats fed soft, processed diets commonly develop dental disease such as gingivitis, calculus and tooth fractures, whereas chewing on bone, hide and connective tissue provides natural abrasion a…

Bovine tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium bovis, established itself in some African lion populations, notably in Kruger National Park, after spreading through prey species such as buffalo, raising…

In ecosystems like Kruger, African buffalo serve as the maintenance host for bovine tuberculosis, and lions acquire infection chiefly by feeding on diseased buffalo. This overview surveys the transmis…

Canine distemper virus (CDV) is a morbillivirus closely related to measles and rinderpest that has expanded its host range far beyond dogs to infect lions, tigers, leopards, hyenas, seals and many oth…

A canine distemper virus outbreak caused substantial mortality in the lions of the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem in the mid-1990s, a landmark event in wildlife disease ecology that demonstrated how a virus…

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…

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…