Research library
🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries
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72 summaries matching “wildcat”
Research overview: the genetic plight of the Scottish wildcat
OverviewThe Scottish wildcat, the last wild felid native to Britain, is threatened less by direct persecution than by hybridization with domestic and feral cats that has blurred its genetic distinctiveness. T…
Research overview: the genetics of domestic cat breeds and populations
OverviewMost domestic cats are random-bred, but a few dozen recognized breeds have been developed over the past century, providing a resource for genetic study. This overview surveys research using genome-wid…
Research overview: the meow as a human-directed signal
OverviewAdult cats rarely meow at one another but meow frequently at people, leading to the hypothesis that the meow is largely a product of life with humans. This overview surveys evidence that domestic cats…
Research overview: the self-domestication hypothesis in cats
OverviewThe idea that cats domesticated themselves holds that wildcats with reduced fear of humans gained access to abundant rodents and food scraps, reproduced more successfully near settlements, and thereby…
Research overview: why felid taxonomy matters for conservation listing
OverviewCat classification is not merely academic; it directly shapes how cats are protected. This overview explains how taxonomy underlies Red List assessments, CITES appendices, and national legislation, al…
SNP-based methods reveal the extent of wildcat-domestic cat hybridization in Scotland
PaperThis study applied genome-wide SNP markers to quantify how thoroughly Scottish wildcats have hybridized with domestic cats, a central question for the survival of the population. The authors developed…
Senn HV, Ghazali M, Kaden J, et al. · Evolutionary Applications · 2019
The Late Miocene radiation of modern Felidae: a genetic assessment
PaperThis landmark genetic study reconstructed the evolutionary history of the cat family, using molecular data across all living felid species to resolve the major lineages and their divergence times. It…
Johnson WE, Eizirik E, Pecon-Slattery J, Murphy WJ, Antunes A, Teeling E, OBrien SJ · Science · 2006
The Near Eastern Origin of Cat Domestication
PaperThis study traced the ancestry of the domestic cat by sampling wildcats across their range and comparing mitochondrial DNA from hundreds of wild and domestic individuals. The authors showed that all d…
Carlos A. Driscoll, Marilyn Menotti-Raymond, Stephen J. O'Brien, et al. · Science · 2007
The Near Eastern origin of cat domestication
PaperDriscoll and colleagues sampled mitochondrial DNA from nearly 1,000 wildcats and domestic cats across Europe, Asia and Africa to resolve where the house cat came from. The analysis showed all domestic…
Carlos A. Driscoll, Marilyn Menotti-Raymond, Alfred L. Roca, et al. · Science · 2007
The Near Eastern origin of cat domestication
PaperThis landmark study sampled wildcats across Europe, Africa, and Asia and used mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites to define the structure of the Felis silvestris complex and pinpoint the ancestry of…
Driscoll CA, Menotti-Raymond M, Roca AL, et al. · Science · 2007
The Palaeogenetics of Cat Dispersal in the Ancient World
PaperThis study sequenced ancient DNA from cat remains spanning roughly ten thousand years across Europe, the Near East, and Africa to trace how cats spread alongside humans. The authors identified two maj…
Claudio Ottoni, Eva-Maria Geigl, Thierry Grange, et al. · Nature Ecology & Evolution · 2017
The Taming of the Cat: an accessible synthesis of wildcat ancestry and domestication
ReviewThis widely read popular-science synthesis distilled the molecular findings on wildcat systematics and cat domestication for a general audience. Written by researchers central to the foundational wild…
Driscoll CA, Clutton-Brock J, Kitchener AC, O'Brien SJ · Scientific American · 2009