🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This overview synthesizes a body of GPS-telemetry research that transformed understanding of puma ecology by intensively visiting location clusters to study predation, competition, and social behavior…

An overview of how the advent of GPS telemetry transformed estimation of kill rates for solitary cats such as pumas, leopards and lynx. The approach identifies spatial clusters of frequent locations,…

Interstate 90 over Snoqualmie Pass in Washington State bisects forested habitat in the Cascade Range, and an extensive program of wildlife overpasses and underpasses has been built to restore movement…

The extinct American cheetah of the genus Miracinonyx superficially resembled the living cheetah, with adaptations for fast pursuit of swift prey such as the pronghorn. This overview surveys genetic a…

P-22 was a male puma collared by the National Park Service after he made an improbable journey across two of Los Angeles's busiest freeways, the 405 and the 101, to settle in tiny Griffith Park beside…

P-22 became the most famous urban mountain lion in the world after crossing two of the busiest freeways in the United States to settle in Griffith Park, a small island of habitat surrounded by central…

This overview describes the integrated collar architecture that combined GPS with an inertial measurement unit of accelerometers and magnetometers to study puma movement and energetics at fine resolut…

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…

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…

Even in the GPS era, VHF remains indispensable for one task: signaling death. This overview describes mortality-mode beacons that change pulse rate when a collar stops moving for a set interval, alert…

Sylvatic plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, circulates among rodents in the American West, and mountain lions become exposed by preying on infected rodents and lagomorphs. This overview…

This overview surveys how tri-axial acceleration data from collars are translated into behavioral states for cats, enabling activity budgets and the detection of key events like kills. Researchers typ…

This overview reviews the application of adaptive management, structured learning through iterative intervention, monitoring, and adjustment, to human-big cat conflict. It synthesises arguments that b…

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…

Movement models can be turned around to simulate animals, generating virtual trajectories from estimated movement rules to predict population-level patterns. This overview describes agent-based and in…

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…

A survey of the two principal felid hunting strategies, stalk-and-ambush used by most cats and the high-speed pursuit of the cheetah, and their ecological consequences. Ambush predators rely on cover…

Camera collars turn a tracked animal into a first-person observer, recording short video or still bursts that reveal behavior invisible to GPS dots. This overview describes how researchers have mounte…

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…

Some Toxoplasma infections in southern sea otters involve unusual atypical genotypes, including a so-called Type X strain rarely seen in domestic cats. This overview surveys research suggesting that w…

Pumas living near urban areas adjust where, when and how they move, feed and rest in response to human presence and the built environment. This overview synthesises telemetry and GPS-cluster research,…

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…

This overview examines the evolutionary geography of the cheetah lineage and its New World relatives. Molecular and fossil evidence indicate that the cheetah-puma group has a complex transatlantic his…

An overview of how solitary cats protect and prolong access to their kills by caching them. Pumas cover carcasses with vegetation and soil and revisit them over several days, while leopards famously h…

Modern tracking technologies have transformed how disease is studied in elusive wild cats. This overview surveys the use of camera traps and GPS telemetry to investigate felid disease ecology, from de…

An overview of how camera-trap arrays and occupancy modeling are used to study the spatial and temporal relationships between pumas and their prey. By recording where and when cats and prey are detect…

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…

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…

Long-term studies that radio-collar wild felids provide rare opportunities to determine causes of death, including disease, with precision. This overview surveys how telemetry-based monitoring quantif…

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…