🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Cheetahs are largely diurnal, hunting in the cooler parts of the day, a pattern shaped partly by the need to avoid dominant nocturnal competitors. This overview synthesizes research showing that cheet…

Unlike most small Neotropical cats, the jaguarundi is frequently active during daylight, a trait that shapes its interactions with people and other felids in shared landscapes. This overview synthesis…

The Canada lynx and bobcat are North American members of the lynx lineage whose relationships and occasional hybridization illuminate felid speciation. This overview examines their divergence, with mo…

This overview examines genetic and fossil evidence bearing on when the cave lion lineage split from the ancestors of modern lions. Ancient DNA studies estimate that Panthera spelaea diverged from the…

Geoffroy's cat and the kodkod (guigna) are closely related small cats of southern South America whose relationships illuminate the Leopardus radiation. This overview examines their phylogenetic placem…

The Indian subcontinent hosts two recognized leopard subspecies, the Indian leopard of the mainland and the Sri Lankan leopard isolated on its island. This overview examines the evidence distinguishin…

Beyond learning from other cats, researchers have asked whether cats can copy or learn from human demonstrators. This overview surveys exploratory studies, including reports that cats can be trained t…

Recent research suggests some mammals, possibly including cats, transmit ultraviolet light to the retina, and this overview reviews the evidence and its uncertainty for felids. Studies of ocular media…

Feral cats have been implicated in numerous extinctions of island species, and this overview surveys the documented cases and patterns. It examines examples of birds, mammals and reptiles lost or driv…

Beyond counting animals, camera traps capture rare and revealing behavior, hunting, feeding at kills, scent-marking, social interactions, denning, and play, providing windows into the secretive lives…

A long-standing hypothesis held that cheetahs abandon chases because sprinting overheats them, storing heat faster than they can lose it. This overview examines the evidence, including studies that im…

Because the domestic cat and its wild relatives remain fully interfertile, hybridization is a persistent conservation concern, especially for the European wildcat, Felis silvestris silvestris, in plac…

Successive improvements to the domestic cat reference genome have made the species a tractable model for genetics and biomedicine. This overview surveys the development of cat genome assemblies and as…

Free-ranging domestic cats prey on a wide range of urban and suburban wildlife, with documented effects on birds, small mammals, reptiles and amphibians. This overview synthesises predation-rate studi…

An overview of the substantial toll free-ranging domestic cats take on wild birds, small mammals, reptiles and amphibians in urban, suburban and rural landscapes. Both owned outdoor cats and unowned f…

Free-roaming and feral domestic cats, vastly more numerous than their wild relatives, act as a reservoir for pathogens that can spill into endangered felids. This overview surveys the suite of disease…

Using domestic cats to gestate embryos of related wild species offers a practical surrogate system for conservation reproductive technology. This overview surveys the use of domestic cat recipients to…

Where domestic cats overlap with wild felids, interbreeding can erode the genetic distinctiveness of wild species, a documented threat to European wildcats and a concern for other small cats near sett…

Domestic cats occupy the urban carnivore community alongside native mesopredators and larger carnivores, and their abundance is shaped by interactions with these species. This overview synthesises res…

Because domestic dogs often act as the reservoir feeding canine distemper into wild carnivores, vaccinating dogs around protected areas has become a key conservation tool. This overview surveys the lo…

In felids housed or living in groups, social rank can influence which individuals reproduce and how successfully. This overview surveys how dominance hierarchies relate to reproduction in cats, includ…

Whether cats form dominance hierarchies has long been debated, since their social structure differs from the linear hierarchies of many group-living mammals. This overview surveys research on agonisti…

To trust accelerometer-derived energy estimates, researchers validate them against independent physiological measures, and the doubly labelled water method is a gold standard for field metabolic rate.…

How cats drink became a notable physics question, and this overview reviews the mechanics of feline lapping and its place in water balance. Research showed that cats lap by darting the tongue tip onto…

A survey of the factors that lead snow leopards to kill domestic livestock, the principal source of conflict that drives retaliatory killing of this endangered cat. Depredation rises where wild prey s…

Drought reverberates through ecosystems by reducing vegetation, prey body condition, and reproduction, with cascading effects on the predators that depend on them. This overview surveys how droughts o…

In western North America, puma populations track deer and other ungulate prey whose abundance and condition fluctuate with drought. This overview surveys how dry years reduce forage, lower prey recrui…

African lions inhabit savannas where drought and water availability strongly shape prey abundance and distribution, making them sensitive to climate variability. This overview surveys how droughts red…

Drought intensifies competition between people and predators for scarce water, forage, and livestock, often heightening human-wildlife conflict. This overview surveys how dry periods push cats toward…

To stretch limited battery life, modern collars use duty cycling, turning sensors and the GPS receiver on only at chosen times, and adaptive schedules that intensify sampling when it matters most. Thi…