🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

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…

Estimating snow leopard density relies heavily on camera trapping combined with capture-recapture, exploiting the unique rosette and spot patterns that allow individual identification. This overview s…

This overview reviews the application of camera-trap surveys and spatially explicit capture-recapture methods to estimate big-cat density in human-dominated and conflict-prone landscapes. It synthesis…

Camera traps, often paired with individual identification by coat patterns and spatial capture-recapture models, are a cornerstone method for studying secretive felids in human-dominated landscapes. T…

Long-term camera-trap monitoring underpins knowledge of the Amur leopard, allowing researchers to identify every individual in the population by its unique rosette pattern and to track numbers, surviv…

Camera trapping has become the primary method for studying snow leopards, exploiting their habit of traveling and marking along ridgelines. This overview synthesizes how researchers place cameras at s…

Cat coats are often patterned for concealment, and this overview reviews the function and development of spots, stripes, and rosettes. Patterns such as the tiger stripes and leopard rosettes break up…

Canine distemper virus (CDV) is a morbillivirus closely related to measles and rinderpest that has expanded its host range far beyond dogs to infect lions, tigers, leopards, hyenas, seals and many oth…

The critically endangered Amur leopard is supported by a coordinated captive breeding program intended to safeguard the subspecies and potentially supply animals for reinforcement. This overview surve…

Snow leopards, adapted to cold, rugged, high-altitude terrain, present particular welfare considerations in captivity. This overview surveys their husbandry: the importance of elevated rocky structure…

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…

An overview of the quantitative tools used to predict how many large predators a reserve can sustain from its prey base, building on the prey-preference and prey-biomass approaches. These models estim…

Snow cover shapes how snow leopards stalk prey, move across terrain, and den, so shifts in the timing, depth, and persistence of snow under warming can alter their ecology. This overview surveys how r…

The cheetah's celebrated speed is the centerpiece of a hunting strategy built on daytime pursuit of fleet prey. This overview synthesizes research on how cheetahs stalk to within range before launchin…

Climate change poses a distinctive threat to snow leopards by altering the high-mountain habitats they depend on. This overview synthesizes research projecting how warming may push the treeline and fo…

Snow leopards inhabit cold, high-elevation environments that are projected to shrink as climate warming pushes the treeline upward and alters alpine ecosystems. This overview surveys research modellin…

Climate change poses varied threats to the world's cats, and assessing which species and populations are most vulnerable is increasingly important for prioritization. This overview surveys research on…

Snow leopard persistence is tightly coupled to wild ungulate prey such as blue sheep (bharal), Himalayan ibex, and argali, whose forage and distribution shift with warming. This overview surveys how a…

Climate refugia, places relatively buffered from climate change where species can persist, are an increasingly central organizing idea in conservation planning. This overview surveys the typology of r…

Snow leopards occupy cold, high-elevation habitat that climate change threatens to shrink and fragment, and this overview examines how movement and distribution research informs projections of their f…

This overview examines clouded leopard activity, which camera-trap studies generally describe as nocturnal and crepuscular, with some daytime movement, and a strong association with forest cover at al…

This overview reviews the comparatively understudied conflict between people and smaller wild cats, including clouded leopards, in Southeast Asian forest-agriculture mosaics. It synthesises scattered…

Southeast Asia harbors a rich diversity of poorly studied forest cats, from clouded leopards to marbled cats, leopard cats, and others, and this overview examines the sparse but growing movement resea…

Clouded leopards are among the most accomplished climbers of all cats, and this overview reviews the adaptations behind their arboreal skill. Like the margay, they possess highly flexible ankle joints…

Clouded leopards, both the mainland and Sunda species, are secretive, partly arboreal forest cats whose cloud-shaped coat blotches allow individual identification from camera-trap images. This overvie…

Clouded leopards possess the largest canine teeth relative to skull size of any living cat, and this overview reviews the morphology and its implications. The long upper canines and wide gape have inv…

Captive management of clouded leopards has been notably challenging, and this overview reviews research aimed at improving it. Breeding programs have struggled with mate aggression, in which males may…

Dietary information for clouded leopards, drawn from scattered observations, scat, and prey remains, indicates a broad diet spanning arboreal and terrestrial prey. This overview synthesizes records of…

Clouded leopards occupy forests from the Himalayan foothills and northeast India through Southeast Asia, with a distinct species on Borneo and Sumatra. This overview compiles records describing their…

Clouded leopards are forest-dependent cats of Southeast Asia and the Himalayan foothills whose arboreal habits tie them closely to intact forest. This overview surveys their distribution, sensitivity…