🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Unlike most small cats, the jaguarundi is notably diurnal, and this overview reviews this distinctive trait. Camera-trap and observational studies record peak activity during daylight, often mid-morni…

The jaguarundi, an unusually weasel-shaped small cat, ranges through scrub, forest edge and agricultural mosaics across Latin America, yet remains poorly studied. This overview synthesises camera-trap…

The jaguarundi has an unusual appearance for a cat, with a long, slender body, short legs, small flattened head, and long tail, giving it a weasel- or otter-like look, and this overview reviews its di…

This overview synthesises studies identifying which landscape and management variables predict where big cats kill livestock, a recurring quantitative question across conflict research. It reviews con…

Landscape genetics links genetic patterns to the features of the terrain between populations, a toolkit central to studying fragmentation in cats. This overview surveys the methods, from microsatellit…

Black jaguars, often called black panthers, are melanistic individuals of the same species, and their occurrence carries ecological interest. This overview synthesizes research on the genetics of mela…

Black, or melanistic, coats appear repeatedly in wild cats, and this overview reviews this phenomenon and its causes. Melanism, seen famously in black leopards and jaguars, results from genetic varian…

Melanism, the occurrence of all-black individuals, is relatively common in Geoffroys cat, and this overview reviews the phenomenon and its study. Dark color morphs appear at notable frequencies in som…

Estimating how many big cats occupy an area is a central and challenging task in their ecology and conservation. This overview reviews the main methods, from individual-identification camera-trap capt…

This overview examines how molecular clocks, calibrated with fossils, have been used to estimate when the living big cats diverged from one another. Genetic studies place the origin of the Panthera li…

This overview synthesises evidence linking the depletion of natural prey, peccaries, deer, capybara, guanaco, to increased jaguar and puma depredation on livestock across the Americas. It reviews stud…

Many landscapes host several small cats at once, and this overview reviews how they coexist through niche partitioning. Studies of Neotropical and Asian cat assemblages show that sympatric species div…

Where several large cats share a landscape, they coexist by partitioning resources along axes of prey size, habitat, and activity. This overview synthesizes research across continents showing how tige…

Where pumas and jaguars overlap in the Neotropics, the puma often shifts its niche in response to the larger cat. This overview synthesizes research showing that in sympatry pumas tend to take smaller…

Activity-budget research using camera traps and accelerometer collars characterizes the ocelot as predominantly nocturnal and crepuscular, with peaks near dusk and dawn that overlap the activity of it…

This overview reviews how payments-for-ecosystem-services (PES) frameworks have been adapted to compensate communities for hosting large carnivores, treating predator presence as a service worth rewar…

This overview synthesises studies across Latin America comparing ranchers' perceived livestock losses to jaguars and pumas with verified depredation, a recurring theme in big-cat conflict. It reviews…

The jaguar, the largest cat of the Americas, ranges from the southwestern United States to Argentina, and genetic studies have examined how this vast distribution is structured. This overview surveys…

Range expansions often begin with a handful of pioneering individuals making improbable journeys into vacant habitat, and this overview examines how movement science documents these events for cats. W…

Even where forest remains standing, jaguars can decline if their prey is hunted out, a phenomenon known as empty forest or defaunation that interacts with habitat and climate change. This overview sur…

Protected areas are the cornerstone of felid conservation, but their effectiveness at stopping habitat loss varies and is tested by mounting land-use and climate pressure. This overview surveys method…

Individual reserves are rarely large enough to sustain wide-ranging cats on their own, so conservation increasingly relies on networks of protected areas linked by corridors, and this overview examine…

The jaguar's continuous historical range once stretched from the southwestern United States to Argentina, and maintaining connectivity across this expanse is a central conservation goal. This overview…

Although jaguars are best treated as a single species, they do show some geographic genetic structure relevant to conservation. This overview surveys studies documenting differentiation across the jag…

Satellite remote sensing is the backbone of measuring habitat change across the vast ranges of wild cats. This overview surveys the data and methods, optical imagery for land-cover classification, rad…

Rivers, streams, and the vegetated strips along them often serve as natural movement corridors for cats, offering cover, water, prey, and continuous habitat threading through otherwise open or develop…

This overview examines the persistent gap between perceived and actual risk in human-big cat conflict, a theme cutting across lion, tiger, leopard, puma, and jaguar systems. It synthesises research sh…

Wild cats communicate through scent-marking, spraying, scraping, cheek-rubbing, and clawing, leaving signals at conspicuous sites that they revisit, behavior that camera traps are uniquely positioned…

Agroforestry systems such as shade coffee and cacao, along with tree plantations and pasture-forest mosaics, can provide partial habitat for ocelots, margays, oncillas and jaguarundis across Latin Ame…

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…