🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

A survey of how the kills of large cats function as a form of ecosystem engineering, structuring scavenger communities, nutrient flow and local biodiversity. Because predators such as pumas, leopards…

Effective population size, the number of individuals genetically contributing to the next generation, is often far smaller than the census count and is a key predictor of how quickly a population lose…

Living near people imposes hidden energetic costs on felids through interrupted hunting, abandoned kills, vigilance, detours around development and altered activity timing. This overview synthesises a…

A survey of the conditions under which big cats switch from hunting to scavenging, and what this means for their ecology. Although large felids lack the scavenging specializations of hyenas and vultur…

The presence of cats in South America results from the Great American Biotic Interchange, when the Isthmus of Panama connected the Americas and allowed northern mammals to disperse south. This overvie…

An overview of how predation by cats can influence the spread and prevalence of disease in their prey populations. By selectively removing sick, weak or behaviorally abnormal individuals, predators ma…

Because feline immunodeficiency virus evolves rapidly and is transmitted through fighting, its genetic signal can reveal how pumas move across fragmented landscapes. This overview surveys studies that…

The wildland-urban interface, where development meets wildland vegetation, is expanding and is the zone where climate-driven fire most directly intersects with cat populations like urban-edge pumas an…

The puma population of the Santa Monica Mountains is hemmed in by freeways and the Pacific Ocean, producing one of the most acute cases of urban carnivore genetic isolation on record. This overview sy…

This overview synthesises emerging priorities and frontiers in human-big cat conflict and coexistence research. It reviews calls for more rigorous impact evaluation, greater integration of social scie…

Pumas living near major cities, such as those in the Santa Monica and Santa Ana Mountains of California, are increasingly hemmed in by freeways and development, fragmenting their populations and restr…

Small populations accumulate deleterious mutations, the genetic load, but sustained inbreeding can also expose and remove the most harmful recessive variants through a process called purging. This ove…

Wildlife corridors aim to reconnect fragmented cat populations, and genetics provides a direct test of whether they actually restore gene flow. This overview surveys how landscape and population genet…

The Florida panther’s recovery hinged on a landmark genetic restoration that introduced Texas pumas to relieve severe inbreeding, with implications for disease resilience. This overview surveys how th…

When urban felid populations become severely inbred, genetic rescue, the introduction of individuals or gene flow from other populations, can restore diversity and demographic vigour. This overview sy…

The Florida panther, a population of puma isolated in the southeastern United States, became a landmark case of inbreeding and genetic rescue. This overview synthesizes how the small, isolated populat…

The Florida panther, a small isolated puma population, suffered severe inbreeding manifesting in physical defects such as kinked tails, undescended testicles, and heart abnormalities, prompting a land…

In many cats, one sex disperses farther than the other, with males typically moving while females remain near their natal range, a pattern that leaves distinct genetic footprints. This overview survey…

The jaguarundi is an unusually shaped small cat of the Americas, with an elongated body and uniform coat, whose molecular placement revealed it as a close relative of the puma and cheetah within the p…

Gestation in felids scales broadly with body size, ranging from roughly two months in small cats to around three and a half months in the largest species. This overview compiles comparative data on pr…

Vehicle collisions are a leading direct cause of death for felids in human-dominated landscapes worldwide, from pumas on Los Angeles freeways to leopard cats on Taiwan rural roads and fishing cats in…

Documented first in southern California felids and later in Cape Town caracals, anticoagulant-rodenticide exposure in wild cats has emerged as a global phenomenon wherever predators hunt poisoned rode…

This overview reviews the use of guardian animals other than dogs, notably donkeys and llamas, to deter big cats and other predators from livestock herds. It synthesises evidence that aggressive donke…

An overview of how the spatial scale at which predators and prey use the landscape, their habitat domains, determines the strength and form of fear effects. When an ambush felid has a narrow, predicta…

This overview synthesises evidence on why deterrents, lights, sirens, scent, and visual scarecrows, often lose effectiveness as predators habituate. It examines the behavioural ecology of neophobia an…

Hemotropic mycoplasmas, formerly called Haemobartonella, attach to red blood cells and can cause infectious anemia in felids, with wild cats carrying these bacteria across many populations. This overv…

Concentrated, predictable food in cities allows carnivores to meet their needs over smaller areas, contributing to the strikingly compressed home ranges documented in urban felids from leopards to pum…

For much of the twentieth century, cat classification rested on coat patterns, skull morphology, and geography, producing many poorly supported species and subspecies. This overview surveys how molecu…

Successful coexistence with urban felids depends as much on human attitudes, institutions and behaviour as on animal ecology. This overview synthesises social-science research on tolerance, risk perce…

Living near people may force cats to expend energy differently, and this overview synthesizes research linking human-modified landscapes to the energetics of felid movement. Building on biologging stu…