🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Much fishing cat habitat now lies within human-dominated wetlands, including rice paddies, fish farms, and the marshy fringes of villages, and this overview reviews research on these populations. Came…

The mangrove forests of the Sundarbans and other deltas hold important fishing cat populations, and this overview compiles research from these systems. Tidal mangroves offer abundant fish, crabs, and…

The fishing cat is one of the few wild felids to persist within a Asian capital, surviving in the marshes, canals and waterways threaded through metropolitan Colombo, Sri Lanka. This overview synthesi…

Although a pride is a stable social unit, its members are rarely all together; lions move in subgroups that split and merge in a fission-fusion pattern. This overview surveys research on how pride mem…

Although a pride is a stable membership group, its members are rarely all together at once. This overview reviews how lionesses split into subgroups that hunt, rest, and travel independently before re…

GPS collars do not always acquire a position, and crucially, the probability of failure is not random: dense canopy, steep terrain, and an animal resting in a cave or thicket all suppress fixes. This…

Beyond the face and paws, cats have scent glands on other parts of the body, including along the tail and flanks, that contribute to chemical marking. This overview surveys these additional glandular…

This overview reviews the use of flashing LED deterrent systems, including commercial Foxlights and the locally invented Lion Lights popularised by Kenyan inventor Richard Turere, to discourage noctur…

The flat-headed cat shows striking anatomical adaptations to aquatic foraging, and this overview reviews them. Its name comes from a flattened head and forward-set eyes suited to peering into water, w…

This overview examines the flat-headed cat absolute dependence on lowland freshwater wetlands, the factor that most defines its conservation plight. The species is tied to rivers, swamps, and marshes…

The flat-headed cat is a highly specialized, semi-aquatic small felid of Southeast Asian peat-swamp and riverine forests, and one of the most threatened and poorly known cats in the world. This overvi…

The flat-headed cat is among the most piscivorous of felids, and this overview reviews its specialized aquatic diet. Observations and morphology indicate a diet centered on fish, frogs, and crustacean…

The flat-headed cat is a highly specialized wetland felid restricted to Sundaland, occurring on Borneo and Sumatra and in parts of the Malay Peninsula and southern Thailand. This overview compiles rec…

Fleas transmit a range of pathogens to felids, including Bartonella species responsible for cat-scratch disease, hemotropic mycoplasmas that cause anemia, and the plague bacterium. This overview surve…

The flehmen response, in which a cat draws back its lips, opens its mouth, and appears to grimace, delivers chemical signals to the vomeronasal organ in the roof of the mouth for processing of non-vol…

Cats are exquisitely sensitive to movement, and their temporal vision, including the rate at which flickering light fuses into a steady image, shapes how they perceive motion. This overview surveys fe…

Not every adult tiger holds a territory; some live as floaters, occupying the gaps between residents and waiting for a vacancy. This overview synthesizes research on how these non-territorial individu…

Whether companion animals understand human communicative gestures bears on how domestication reshapes cognition. This overview surveys research on cats' ability to use human pointing to locate hidden…

This overview examines research on forecasting big-cat attacks and translating risk maps into operational decisions, bridging prediction and action. It synthesises work modelling environmental and beh…

Sabertooths such as Smilodon had exceptionally muscular, robust forelimbs, and this overview reviews their inferred role in subduing prey before the bite. Strong, heavily built front limbs would let t…

This overview examines the exceptionally powerful forelimbs of Smilodon and what they reveal about how the cat subdued prey. Compared with similarly sized living felids, Smilodon shows thickened limb…

Forensic science has become a powerful tool against the illegal trade in big cat parts, allowing seized skins, bones, and other products to be identified to species, and sometimes to population or ind…

As Sumatra's forests are carved into smaller blocks, maintaining connectivity among tiger populations becomes vital. This overview surveys how fragmentation isolates tiger subpopulations, the role of…

Cats have forward-facing eyes with substantial binocular overlap, giving them stereoscopic depth perception that complements any depth cues from pupil shape. This overview surveys how binocular vision…

Early socialisation has lifelong effects on feline temperament, making the handling of shelter kittens during their sensitive period a high-stakes welfare and adoptability issue. This overview surveys…

The genetic composition of founders and the rigor of post-release monitoring are central to reintroduction success, and this overview surveys research on both. Studies show that too few founders, or f…

Preserving the balanced genetic contribution of the original founders is a central goal of captive breeding, since uneven representation accelerates the loss of diversity. This overview surveys how fo…

Captive big cats commonly fracture their large canine teeth through biting enclosure barriers, fighting, or chewing hard objects, exposing the pulp and causing pain and infection that require dental i…

This overview synthesises emerging frameworks for managing leopards in urban and peri-urban India, integrating ecology, public health, communications, and governance. It reviews recommendations distil…

Free-ranging domestic cat density often peaks in human-dominated areas where supplemental feeding and shelter abound, declining toward wildland where native predators and scarcer food limit them. This…