🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Understanding how jaguars use human-modified landscapes is key to predicting their response to land-use and climate change. This overview surveys GPS-telemetry and resource-selection research showing…

Where jaguars share land with cattle ranching, depredation drives conflict that threatens the cat through retaliatory killing. This overview synthesizes studies on the patterns and drivers of jaguar p…

This overview reviews market-based incentives that reward ranchers for jaguar-compatible practices, including jaguar-friendly or wildlife-friendly beef certification and premium pricing. It synthesise…

A survey of how jaguars and pumas, the two large cats of the Neotropics, coexist across much of their shared range by partitioning prey, space and time. Jaguars generally take larger prey, including p…

This overview synthesises human-jaguar conflict across the species' range from Mexico to Argentina, where cattle ranching dominates jaguar habitat. It reviews patterns of depredation on calves and adu…

Jaguars are the most water-associated of the big cats in the Americas, and in wetland strongholds they specialize on aquatic and semi-aquatic prey. This overview synthesizes research showing how jagua…

Although associated with wilderness, jaguars increasingly contact human-dominated landscapes as agriculture, ranching and settlement fragment their range across Latin America. This overview synthesise…

At the northern limit of their distribution, in northern Mexico and occasionally the southwestern United States, jaguars persist at low density and high conservation sensitivity. This overview synthes…

This overview examines how the jaguarundi coexists with the several other small cats that share its range, drawing on community ecology studies. Through its diurnal activity, terrestrial habits, prefe…

Dietary studies describe the jaguarundi as a terrestrial hunter taking a high proportion of birds along with small mammals, reptiles, and invertebrates. This overview synthesizes scat and observationa…

The jaguarundi is an unusual, otter-like cat ranging from the southern United States and Mexico through Central America into much of South America east of the Andes. This overview compiles records des…

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…

The force of a cat bite comes from its jaw-closing muscles, chiefly the temporalis and masseter, and this overview reviews their arrangement and relative emphasis. In cats the temporalis is strongly d…

A short, powerful jaw bites hard but opens less widely, and this overview reviews the gape-versus-force trade-off in cats and its consequences. Wide gape helps clear large canines and seize big prey,…

This overview addresses how sabertooths like Smilodon achieved the enormous gape needed to clear their elongated canines and apply them to prey. Estimates suggest the jaws could open to roughly twice…

Kittens are not born able to leap accurately, and this overview reviews how jumping ability develops through growth and play. As kittens grow, their muscles strengthen, limb proportions change, and ne…

The jungle cat thrives in human-modified wetlands, irrigated croplands and reed beds across Asia and the Middle East, often close to villages and towns. This overview synthesises distribution, diet an…

This overview synthesizes how GPS cluster methods have been applied across felid species to estimate how often cats kill and what they eat, turning location data into quantitative diet and predation-r…

A survey of how researchers locate and interpret felid kill sites and the biases that affect the resulting estimates of kill rate and prey composition. Field investigation of GPS clusters, snow-tracki…

Cooperation among male lions in coalitions is shaped by how closely the members are related, with kin selection favoring tolerance of shared reproduction among relatives. This overview surveys the rel…

A survey of the pervasive theft of kills within the African large-carnivore guild, where lions, spotted hyenas, leopards, cheetahs and wild dogs constantly contest carcasses. The direction and outcome…

Cheetahs lose a significant share of their kills to larger carnivores, a major cost of their position in the savanna guild. This overview synthesizes research showing that lions, hyenas, and even leop…

An overview of how often cheetahs lose their kills to lions, hyenas and other competitors, and the consequences for cheetah foraging. Because cheetahs are exhausted after high-speed pursuits and canno…

This overview compiles what is known of kodkod behavior and activity from camera-trap and telemetry studies in Chile. The species is reported to be active both by day and night, with patterns that may…

The kodkod, or guigna, is the smallest cat in the Americas and is restricted to the temperate rainforests of central and southern Chile and adjacent Argentina. This overview compiles records describin…

The kodkod is strongly tied to forest, and this overview reviews research on how forest loss and fragmentation affect it. Studies in Chile show the species using native forest, forest fragments, and f…

Diagnosis of feline hyperthyroidism rests primarily on measuring elevated total thyroxine (T4), supported in equivocal cases by free T4, repeat testing, or dynamic tests such as T3 suppression and thy…

Tigers maintain a land-tenure system in which resident adults hold largely exclusive territories advertised and defended through scent marks, scrapes, and vocalisations. This overview surveys radio-te…