🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This overview examines how the limb proportions of Smilodon distinguish it from pursuit predators and point to an ambush hunting style. Compared with cursorial carnivores built for speed, the sabertoo…

Running near the limits of land-mammal speed places enormous loads on slender limb bones. This overview gathers what is understood about peak ground reaction forces, bone stresses, and the safety fact…

Southern California's cougars persist in mountain ranges increasingly isolated by freeways and development, and this overview examines the science of designing functional linkages between blocks such…

This overview examines the possible ecological connection between the cave lion and the cave bear, two emblematic Ice Age mammals whose extinctions both fall in the latest Pleistocene. Isotopic and co…

The correlation between vertical-slit pupils and ambush predation has become a touchstone example of how anatomy reflects ecology. This overview surveys the broader argument that slit pupils benefit p…

This overview examines the remarkable dispersal history of the lion lineage, which spread from an African and Eurasian heartland across the Northern Hemisphere during the Pleistocene. Cave lions, Pant…

This overview synthesises long-term research on lions ranging at the boundary of Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, where the park abuts communal farmland and trophy-hunting concessions. It reviews evide…

An overview of how resident lions respond to the dramatic seasonal pulses of migratory wildebeest and zebra that pass through their territories. Because lions are territorial and cannot follow the mig…

Lion territory size ranges from tens to many hundreds of square kilometers depending on prey density and water availability. This overview reviews radio-telemetry and GPS studies showing that prides i…

Kruger National Park supports one of the most studied savanna lion populations, offering insight into how large protected areas regulate big cat numbers. This overview reviews how prey availability, d…

Genetic studies have reshaped understanding of how lions are organized across their range, revealing deeper structure than the traditional African-Asiatic split implies. This overview surveys research…

A survey of the predator-prey relationship between lions and African buffalo, a preferred large prey whose size and defensive behavior make it both rewarding and dangerous to hunt. Lions, especially m…

This overview synthesises continental assessments of African lion decline, emphasising conflict-related mortality, prey depletion, and habitat loss as principal drivers. It reviews evidence that retal…

A recurring theme in lion movement research is the edge effect, the way protected-area boundaries shape mortality and movement, and this overview synthesizes the evidence. GPS telemetry shows that lio…

South Africa has reintroduced lions into numerous fenced reserves where they had been extirpated, creating a network of small, intensively managed populations. This overview surveys research on these…

Conservation strategy for lions increasingly centers on the concept of strongholds, large protected landscapes that hold robust, well-connected lion populations capable of long-term persistence. This…

The redrawing of lion subspecies along a north-south axis has direct regulatory consequences under CITES and the Red List. This overview explains how the recognition of the northern subspecies Panther…

Retaliatory and preemptive killing of lions by pastoralists protecting livestock is a leading cause of lion decline outside core protected areas. This overview surveys research on the drivers of depre…

As the largest African cat, the lion exerts strong intraguild pressure on cheetahs and leopards. This overview synthesizes research on how lions kill cheetah cubs and steal kills, forcing cheetahs int…

In the seasonally flooded Okavango Delta, lions face a landscape that shifts from dry ground to a maze of channels and islands. This overview reviews how delta prides adapt by wading and even swimming…

Research has investigated what cats prefer in litter and litter boxes, with direct relevance to preventing house soiling. This overview surveys studies testing preferences for litter substrate, textur…

Lionesses in a pride often conceive and give birth at similar times, producing synchronized litters that are reared communally in a creche. This overview surveys the determinants of lion litter size a…

Litter size in cats varies within and between species, influenced by maternal age and condition, resource availability, and species biology. This overview surveys typical litter sizes from small felid…

Where cats and livestock overlap, the distribution of herds and the layout of settlements shape predator movement, and this overview synthesizes telemetry insights relevant to conflict. GPS data show…

Livestock guarding dogs, such as Anatolian shepherds placed with herds, are a widely promoted nonlethal tool for reducing predation and the retaliatory killing of cats like cheetahs and leopards. This…

This overview surveys the global evidence on livestock-guarding dogs (LGDs), breeds such as Anatolian shepherds, Kangals, and Maremmas, bonded to herds to deter predators through presence, barking, an…

This overview synthesises evidence that competition between domestic livestock and wild ungulates, blue sheep, ibex, argali, depresses natural prey and increases snow leopard reliance on livestock. It…

Local convex hull methods, known as LoCoH, build a home range from many small convex polygons constructed around each location and its nearest neighbors, then merge them into a utilization distributio…

This overview reviews what the skeletons of the earliest cats, especially Proailurus and early Pseudaelurus-grade forms, reveal about their locomotion and likely habits. Features such as relatively lo…

This overview examines documented cases of African lions making exceptional long-distance movements, often dispersing males that leave their natal prides and traverse great distances through human-dom…