🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Although less commonly trained than dogs, cats learn readily through operant conditioning, and this overview surveys research and applied work on training them. It covers the use of positive reinforce…

Oxytocin, a hormone involved in social bonding, has been studied in dogs during owner interaction, and researchers have asked whether cats show comparable hormonal responses. This overview surveys the…

Parvoviruses of carnivores have a history of host-switching, with canine parvovirus having evolved from a feline-like ancestor and continuing to exchange between hosts. This overview surveys the evolu…

The concept of pathogen pollution describes the human-mediated introduction of pathogens into new host populations, a recurring driver of disease in wild felids. This overview surveys how activities s…

Leopard attacks on humans, though rare relative to encounter frequency, shape public perception and policy across urban-adjacent India. This overview surveys research on the spatial and temporal clust…

The cat-human relationship has measurable physiological dimensions, and this overview surveys research probing them. It covers studies of behavioural and hormonal responses, including investigations o…

This overview reviews human-puma conflict across the sheep-ranching landscapes of Argentine and Chilean Patagonia, where pumas prey on sheep and guanaco and ranchers have long persecuted them. It synt…

Rabies, an almost invariably fatal lyssavirus infection, occasionally strikes wild felids exposed through bites from infected dogs, jackals or other wildlife reservoirs. This overview surveys document…

Effective rabies control depends on surveillance that spans the carnivore community, since the virus circulates among dogs, jackals, mongooses, foxes and bat reservoirs that all interface with felids.…

A central question in distemper ecology is how a virus historically associated with dogs repeatedly jumps into cats. This overview surveys research on the molecular basis of canine distemper virus hos…

Cats form bonds with specific people, and research has probed how they recognise their humans. This overview surveys evidence that cats identify owners primarily through voice, as shown in vocal-recog…

Veterinary visits are a major source of acute stress for cats and a barrier to care, since fearful cats are harder to examine and owners may avoid appointments. This overview surveys the science and p…

This overview examines efforts to revive the traditional Mongolian Bankhar livestock-guarding dog as a tool for reducing depredation by snow leopards, wolves, and other predators on the steppe and in…

Once thought to require undisturbed forest, the rusty-spotted cat is increasingly recorded in human-modified landscapes, and this overview reviews its habitat use. Camera-trap studies document the spe…

Self-control tasks, such as choosing a larger delayed reward over a smaller immediate one, probe impulse regulation and have been studied across many species. This overview surveys the limited researc…

A growing body of research asks whether cats are sensitive to whether a human is paying attention to them, a basic component of social cognition. This overview surveys experiments testing whether cats…

A growing body of camera-trap work documents servals persisting in agricultural mosaics, irrigated farmland, and even some peri-urban edges where wetlands and rodents remain. This overview synthesizes…

As agriculture and settlement advance into Neotropical forests, small cats face habitat loss, road mortality, retaliatory killing over poultry depredation, and competition with free-ranging dogs. This…

This overview examines human-snow leopard conflict on the Mongolian steppe and mountains, where mobile pastoralists herding goats, sheep, yaks, and horses overlap with snow leopards across vast rangel…

A key question raised by findings of secure and insecure attachment in cats is whether those styles are stable traits or transient states. This overview surveys evidence on the consistency of feline a…

In and around many South Asian cities, free-ranging and stray dogs constitute a major prey base that sustains leopards at densities unattainable on wild prey alone. This overview synthesises diet and…

Mountain lion exposure to plague is tied to the disease ecology of their rodent and lagomorph prey, which serve as the reservoir and amplifier of Yersinia pestis. This overview surveys how sylvatic pl…

This overview synthesises the long-running program, pioneered by the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia, that places Anatolian shepherd and Kangal guarding dogs with farmers to reduce cheetah and le…

Cats hear across an exceptionally wide frequency range, and this overview reviews its extent and predatory value. Feline hearing extends well into ultrasonic frequencies, higher than humans and even m…

Animal domestication is often described as following three routes: a commensal pathway, a prey pathway and a directed pathway. This overview focuses on the commensal model as applied to cats, in which…

Smell is a major sense for cats, supported by an olfactory epithelium lined with sensory neurons expressing a large family of odorant receptor genes. This overview surveys what is known about the feli…

Research into why cats find silver vine and catnip rewarding has pointed to the involvement of the body's opioid system. This overview surveys evidence that the rubbing and rolling response engages en…

Cat claws are often called retractable, but they are more accurately protrusible: at rest they are held back by elastic ligaments, and muscles actively pull them forward into action. This overview exp…

Compared with dogs and bears, cats have notably short, deep snouts, and this overview explains the biomechanical payoff. Shortening the rostrum moves the canine teeth and carnassials closer to the jaw…

Among terrestrial mammals, cats have one of the highest upper hearing limits, extending well into the ultrasonic range. This overview surveys audiogram data placing the feline ceiling far above the ro…