🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Cats have whiskers beyond the muzzle, and this overview reviews these often-overlooked vibrissae and their roles. Carpal whiskers on the back of the forelegs may help detect and orient struggling prey…

A survey of how cats influence prey populations through fear and disturbance rather than direct killing. Risk effects include reduced foraging, heightened vigilance, altered habitat use, physiological…

Snow leopards inhabit remote, rugged mountains where direct observation is nearly impossible, making noninvasive genetics essential for studying them. This overview surveys how scat-based DNA analysis…

Because most wild cats are elusive and difficult to capture, conservation geneticists increasingly rely on noninvasive samples such as scat, hair, and shed cells to obtain DNA without handling the ani…

Noninvasive measurement of reproductive and stress hormones from feces and urine has transformed the study and management of felid reproduction. This overview surveys the development and application o…

Notoedric mange, caused by Notoedres cati mites, has driven severe, sometimes locally devastating outbreaks in bobcats, particularly around urbanizing areas of California. This overview synthesizes th…

Periodic outbreaks of notoedric mange have caused steep, localised declines in urban and suburban bobcat populations, most prominently in southern California. This overview synthesises research connec…

Cats lose interest in a toy quickly but renew play when the object changes, a pattern that has been studied experimentally. This overview surveys research showing that habituation to a toy is reduced…

An overview of how Canada lynx populations rise and fall in response to snowshoe hare abundance, the numerical-response half of the famous cycle. As hares increase, lynx reproduction and kitten surviv…

Feeding captive non-domestic cats well requires meeting obligate-carnivore requirements for taurine, arginine, vitamin A, arachidonic acid and appropriate calcium-to-phosphorus ratios, which whole pre…

Body condition and nutrition strongly influence how wild felids cope with infection, with stress and malnutrition often tipping tolerated pathogens into disease. This overview surveys the link between…

Indoor lifestyles, while safer, are associated with reduced activity and elevated obesity risk in cats, a major welfare and health concern. This overview surveys research linking confinement, free fee…

Object play in kittens, batting, grasping, and biting at small movable items, closely resembles components of the predatory sequence, prompting long debate over whether play functions as practice for…

Cats are strict, or obligate, carnivores, and this overview reviews what that means metabolically and why it sets cats apart. Through evolutionary specialisation on a meat diet, cats have lost or redu…

Classic experiments established that kittens learn instrumental tasks faster by watching their mother than an unfamiliar adult or by trial and error alone. This overview surveys this body of work on m…

Estimating where tigers occur across vast landscapes requires methods that handle imperfect detection over large areas. This overview synthesizes the use of occupancy modeling, which infers the propor…

Where camera-trap density estimation is too costly to deploy everywhere, occupancy modelling lets researchers map where tigers are present across large landscapes using detection-nondetection data fro…

Dietary studies based on scat analysis and stomach contents describe the ocelot as a generalist hunter that nonetheless concentrates on small terrestrial mammals. Across its range, rodents such as spi…

Ocelots are tightly associated with dense thornscrub providing the cover they need for hunting and travel, making them especially vulnerable to land conversion. This overview synthesises radio-telemet…

Radio-telemetry and spatially explicit capture-recapture studies show ocelots maintaining intrasexual territories, with male ranges overlapping several females while excluding rival males. This overvi…

Activity-budget research using camera traps and accelerometer collars characterizes the ocelot as predominantly nocturnal and crepuscular, with peaks near dusk and dawn that overlap the activity of it…

The ocelot holds one of the broadest ranges of any Neotropical cat, reaching from the thornscrub of southern Texas through Mexico and Central America into the Amazon basin and northern Argentina. This…

Reproductive studies from captive colonies and field monitoring describe ocelots as slow-reproducing for a small cat, typically raising a single kitten, occasionally two, after roughly seventy to eigh…

The ocelot population in south Texas is one of the most endangered cat populations in the United States, and vehicle collisions are a primary threat, making road ecology central to its survival. This…

Behavioral observations and field sign surveys describe how ocelots advertise territory and reproductive state through scent. This overview draws together accounts of urine spraying, fecal deposition…

The remnant ocelot population of south Texas, numbering only a few dozen animals, persists in dense thornscrub fragments amid expanding agriculture, ranchettes and highways. This overview synthesises…

FIP frequently involves the eyes and central nervous system, especially in the non-effusive form, producing uveitis, retinal changes, ataxia, seizures, behavioral changes, and other neurologic signs.…

Sumatra has lost vast areas of lowland rainforest to oil palm and pulpwood plantations, the principal driver of Sumatran tiger habitat loss. This overview surveys how plantation expansion clears and f…

Beyond tigers, Southeast Asia's oil palm expansion affects a guild of smaller cats, including leopard cat, clouded leopard, marbled cat, and flat-headed cat, with widely varying tolerance of plantatio…

Chemical signals among individuals can influence reproductive physiology and behavior in cats, including potential suppressive or stimulatory effects in social settings. This overview surveys how olfa…