🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Functional connectivity, whether animals actually move between habitat patches, is best assessed with movement data from collared cats. This overview surveys how GPS telemetry, step-selection function…

The Jaguar Corridor Initiative is a range-wide effort to maintain a connected network of habitat allowing jaguars to move between core populations from Mexico to Argentina. This overview surveys resea…

The Jaguar Corridor Initiative aims to keep jaguar populations connected from Mexico to Argentina by conserving linkages between core areas. This overview surveys how the initiative's corridor framewo…

This overview synthesises the contested evidence on translocating conflict big cats, capturing and releasing them elsewhere, as a management response. It reviews studies, prominently from Indian leopa…

The ability to roar distinguishes the genus Panthera and is tied to specialized anatomy of the larynx and a flexible hyoid apparatus, while smaller cats purr instead. This overview surveys the anatomi…

In floodplain strongholds such as the Pantanal, the annual flood pulse governs jaguar ecology. This overview synthesizes how rising and falling waters concentrate prey on shrinking patches of dry land…

Black jaguars, often called black panthers, occur naturally within jaguar populations and result from a dominant mutation in the melanocortin-1 receptor gene, distinct from the recessive melanism of t…

This overview synthesises the full toolbox of measures used to mitigate big-cat conflict, organising them into prevention (husbandry, fortified enclosures, guard animals, deterrents, fencing, zoning),…

The jaguar, the only Panthera species in the Americas, occupies an informative position in big cat phylogeny. This overview explains how molecular data place the jaguar within the genus Panthera, clos…

This overview synthesises research on whether wildlife-tourism revenue increases local tolerance for big cats by offsetting conflict costs. It reviews cases from jaguar tourism in the Pantanal, lion t…

Predicted corridors are only useful if real animals actually use them, and this overview examines how researchers validate connectivity models against independent movement data. By overlaying GPS trac…

This overview reviews husbandry interventions promoted to reduce jaguar and puma depredation on cattle in the Venezuelan llanos and elsewhere, including the use of water buffalo, which form defensive…

Unlike most cats, tigers readily enter water and swim, and providing pools is considered an important welfare and enrichment feature for the species. This overview surveys evidence and practice around…

Black panthers are melanistic leopards (or jaguars), and their existence is often misunderstood as indicating a separate species or subspecies. This overview explains the genetics of leopard melanism,…

This study mapped the global human footprint, a composite index of human pressure on land, and tracked its change over time, revealing where pressures intensified and where they eased. The human footp…

Venter, O., Sanderson, E.W., Magrach, A., Allan, J.R., Beher, J., Jones, K.R., et al. · Nature Communications · 2016

Using GPS telemetry on jaguars in the seasonally flooded Pantanal of Brazil, this study quantified home ranges, movements, and the degree of spatial overlap among individuals. It revealed that jaguar…

Cavalcanti, S. M. C., Gese, E. M. · Journal of Mammalogy · 2009

This influential review synthesized the global status of the largest carnivores, including big cats such as lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars, documenting widespread range contraction and populatio…

Ripple, W.J., Estes, J.A., Beschta, R.L., Wilmers, C.C., Ritchie, E.G., Hebblewhite, M., et al. · Science · 2014

The big cats of the genus Panthera proved historically difficult to resolve because of rapid speciation and conflicting gene trees. This study assembled a large multilocus supermatrix and applied both…

Brian W. Davis, Gang Li, William J. Murphy · Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution · 2010

Relationships among the big cats long resisted resolution because of short internal branches and conflicting markers. This study assembled a large multi-gene dataset and applied both concatenated supe…

Davis BW, Li G, Murphy WJ · Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution · 2010

Why can lions and tigers roar while domestic cats and cheetahs cannot? This comparative anatomical study examined the hyoid apparatus, the chain of bones supporting the larynx and tongue, across felid…

Gerald Weissengruber and colleagues · Journal of Anatomy · 2002

Silver and colleagues adapted the tiger camera-trap framework to jaguars, whose unique rosette patterns serve as individual marks. Working in Belize and across Latin American sites, they detailed prac…

Scott C. Silver, Linde E. T. Ostro, Laura K. Marsh, Leonardo Maffei, Andrew J. Noss, et al. · Oryx · 2004

This comprehensive reference compiled the biology, ecology, and conservation status of all the world's wild cat species, from the great roaring cats to the smallest felids. Drawing together field stud…

Sunquist, M. E., Sunquist, F. C. · University of Chicago Press · 2002