🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Banking living somatic cells, such as skin fibroblasts, preserves an individual's full genome for potential future use in cloning or stem cell technologies. This overview surveys the collection, cultu…

Freezing and storing sperm is the most established form of felid biobanking, enabling the preservation and transport of male genetics. This overview surveys methods for cryopreserving cat sperm, inclu…

Across felid species and populations, the quality of sperm morphology tends to correlate with the level of genetic diversity, linking population history to reproductive function. This overview surveys…

Deciding which individuals, tissues, and species to bank, and how to use stored material, requires strategy to maximize conservation value. This overview surveys the principles guiding genome resource…

Many felids, especially genetically depauperate species like the cheetah, produce ejaculates with a high proportion of structurally abnormal sperm, a condition called teratospermia. This overview surv…

Recovering sperm directly from the testis or epididymis provides an alternative source of gametes, especially from animals that cannot be electroejaculated or are recently deceased. This overview surv…

Familiar keepers occupy a special place in a captive animal's social environment, and the quality of the keeper-animal relationship can influence stress, cooperation and welfare. This overview surveys…

The release of mature eggs in cats depends on a surge of luteinizing hormone from the pituitary, which in most species is evoked by the sensory stimulus of mating. This overview describes how the magn…

Despite being a large cat, the cheetah cannot roar and instead produces a distinctive repertoire including bird-like chirps, stutter-bark calls, churrs, and purring. This overview surveys descriptions…

This overview surveys how the presence and behaviour of visitors specifically affect captive cats, a group that frequently responds to crowds with vigilance, hiding or altered activity. It examines st…

While cats typically host Toxoplasma without illness, immunocompromise can unleash severe, even fatal toxoplasmosis in felids. This overview surveys the conditions under which the parasite causes clin…

Moving cats between institutions for breeding, rescue or management is a recognised acute stressor with welfare implications. This overview surveys the science of felid transport and transfer: the str…

Ultrasonography is a noninvasive imaging tool used to detect pregnancy, estimate fetal age, count and monitor fetuses, and assess viability in cats. This overview surveys how ultrasound is applied acr…

Non-invasive cortisol metabolite monitoring lets keepers test whether husbandry changes actually reduce physiological stress, moving welfare management from intuition to evidence. This overview survey…

Captive big cats are vaccinated against diseases that threaten felids, including panleukopenia, the respiratory viruses, and rabies, with protocols adapted from domestic-cat guidelines but informed by…

Faecal glucocorticoid metabolite monitoring is the workhorse of felid stress research because it avoids the confound of capture and restraint, but it requires species-specific validation to be meaning…

Cats vary in how much they depend on free-standing water versus obtaining moisture from prey, a trait that shapes drought resilience in arid landscapes. This overview surveys what is known about water…

Weaning marks the shift from dependence on maternal milk to consuming solid prey, a gradual transition whose timing varies with species and circumstances. This overview surveys weaning ages across the…

Feeding captive big cats appropriately requires meeting their obligate-carnivore nutritional needs, with debate and research around whole-prey versus formulated diets, calcium-phosphorus balance, taur…

The cheetah is the classic exception to feline claw retraction: its claws remain largely exposed, blunt, and dog-like. This overview reviews the functional reasoning that this trades the sharp, sheath…

This study developed and tested protocols for hormonally inducing ovulation and performing laparoscopic artificial insemination in two nondomestic felids. The authors administered exogenous gonadotrop…

Howard JG, Roth TL, Byers AP, Swanson WF, Wildt DE · Biology of Reproduction · 1997

Morgan and Tromborg comprehensively reviewed the environmental factors that stress captive animals, cataloguing sound, light, odour, temperature, substrate, restraint, human presence, predictability a…

Morgan KN, Tromborg CT · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · 2007

This influential study revealed that cheetahs possess strikingly low genetic variation, demonstrated by extreme similarity at protein-coding loci and, in later related work, acceptance of reciprocal s…

O'Brien SJ, Wildt DE, Goldman D, Merril CR, Bush M · Science · 1983

This study established a quantitative baseline for cheetah reproductive physiology by electroejaculating wild-caught males and comparing their semen to that of domestic cats. The cheetahs produced eja…

Wildt DE, Bush M, Howard JG, O'Brien SJ, Meltzer D, van Dyk A, Ebedes H, Brand DJ · Biology of Reproduction · 1983

Mason, Clubb, Latham and Vickery reviewed the evidence that environmental enrichment reduces stereotypies, and found the picture more nuanced than commonly assumed. Across studies, enrichment often re…

Mason G, Clubb R, Latham N, Vickery S · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · 2007

Sunquist and Sunquist's comprehensive reference compiles the natural history, ecology and behavior of all wild felid species, with extensive treatment of diet, prey selection, hunting modes and predat…

Sunquist, M. & Sunquist, F. · University of Chicago Press · 2002