🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

The discovery that a terrestrial cat parasite kills marine mammals reshaped understanding of how pathogens cross ecosystem boundaries. This overview synthesizes research on the flow of Toxoplasma oocy…

Projecting future habitat for cats requires anticipating not just climate but human land-use change, which is modeled with scenario-based simulation tools. This overview surveys approaches that foreca…

Decisions about where and how cities expand profoundly shape whether large and small carnivores can persist alongside people. This overview synthesises research and practice on integrating carnivore n…

Coming down safely is as important as getting up, and this overview reviews how cats absorb the impact of landing. On touchdown the limbs flex to lengthen the deceleration and spread the force over ti…

This overview synthesises studies identifying which landscape and management variables predict where big cats kill livestock, a recurring quantitative question across conflict research. It reviews con…

Quantifying how habitat is broken apart requires landscape metrics that capture patch size, edge, isolation, and configuration. This overview surveys the metrics commonly applied to cat habitat, from…

Landscape genetics links genetic patterns to the features of the terrain between populations, a toolkit central to studying fragmentation in cats. This overview surveys the methods, from microsatellit…

Landscape genetics, combining molecular markers with spatial models, has become essential for detecting how roads and development fragment felid populations and for prioritising connectivity. This ove…

The bobcat, a widespread and adaptable North American cat, has become a model for studying how roads, development, and habitat fragmentation shape gene flow in carnivores. This overview surveys geneti…

Landscape genetics has become a powerful tool for assessing whether tiger corridors actually carry gene flow between reserves in central India. This overview surveys research that samples tiger DNA ac…

This overview examines how the ecological concept of the landscape of fear, the spatial distribution of perceived predation risk, has been applied to human-carnivore conflict. It synthesises work expl…

Depositing semen directly into the oviduct or uterus via laparoscopy bypasses cervical barriers and improves the odds of fertilization in cats with limited sperm quality. This overview surveys the dev…

Body size affects how easily an animal gains or loses heat, and this overview reviews its thermoregulatory consequences for big cats. Because surface area grows more slowly than volume with size, larg…

Cheetahs produce relatively large litters compared with other big cats, sometimes bearing four to six cubs, yet suffer extremely high cub mortality in the wild. This overview surveys the reproductive…

Detecting how cats respond to climate and habitat change requires monitoring at scales that camera-trap networks increasingly provide. This overview surveys how coordinated camera-trap arrays generate…

Beyond purrs and roars, cats produce a rich variety of calls, and this overview reviews the laryngeal anatomy and mechanics behind them. The larynx, with its vocal folds, muscles, and cartilages, shap…

The dominant model of purring posits a neural oscillator, or central pattern generator, that drives rhythmic contraction of the laryngeal muscles to modulate airflow. This overview surveys the evidenc…

This overview reviews evidence that the scimitar-toothed cat Homotherium latidens persisted in Europe far later than once believed. A well-known mandible dredged from the floor of the North Sea, dated…

Before SMART became widespread, systems such as MIST and the CITES MIKE program pioneered structured monitoring of law-enforcement effort and illegal killing, and these frameworks remain important to…

Walking cats on a harness and leash is promoted as a way to give indoor cats safe outdoor stimulation, and this overview surveys what is known about the practice. It examines welfare considerations in…

Two dominant modeling frameworks translate landscape resistance into predicted movement corridors, and this overview compares them. Least-cost path analysis finds the single cheapest route between hab…

Conservation planners model wildlife corridors using methods such as least-cost path analysis and circuit theory, which translate landscapes into surfaces of movement resistance to predict where anima…

How long cats remain in a shelter strongly affects their welfare, and overcrowding beyond a facility's capacity for care worsens stress, disease and outcomes. This overview surveys the concept of capa…

The lens of the eye changes with age, and older cats commonly develop nuclear sclerosis, a hardening and clouding of the lens that can affect vision. This overview surveys age-related lens changes in…

The last wild Asiatic lions, confined to the Gir Forest of India, form a small, genetically depleted population whose disease exposure draws particular concern. This overview surveys what is known and…

Leopards are flexible in their timing of activity, becoming more strictly nocturnal where humans and dominant competitors are present. This overview synthesizes camera-trap studies showing that leopar…

Leopards are versatile solitary hunters whose success rests on stealth, ambush, and the ability to secure kills from kleptoparasites. This overview surveys studies of leopard hunting tactics across fo…

This overview examines persistent leopard predation on humans in the Pauri Garhwal hills of Uttarakhand, India, a region with a long history of so-called man-eating leopards. It synthesises work on th…

This overview examines leopard cat activity, which camera-trap and telemetry studies generally describe as predominantly nocturnal and crepuscular, with flexibility according to prey, season, and dist…

Leopard cats occasionally prey on free-ranging chickens, generating conflict with rural households whose tolerance is pivotal to the species survival in unprotected farmland. This overview synthesises…