🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Conservation managers must decide which populations to treat as separate units for protection, breeding, and translocation, and genetics provides the primary evidence. This overview surveys the concep…

Because enforcement alone struggles to stop trade driven by persistent consumer demand, conservationists increasingly invest in demand-reduction interventions aimed at changing the behavior of people…

Beyond individual illness, bovine tuberculosis may reshape lion populations and social behavior over time. This overview synthesizes research and modeling on how chronic TB reduces survival and reprod…

Female cats select sheltered den sites to give birth and protect altricial young during their most vulnerable weeks. This overview surveys how felid mothers choose dens that provide concealment and th…

Lions in the Kalahari and Namib regions survive in arid environments with sparse, dispersed prey and little surface water. This overview synthesizes studies showing how these lions range over enormous…

This overview synthesises the theory and practice of compensating farmers for livestock killed by big cats as a tolerance-building tool. It reviews recurring design challenges: verifying claims to pre…

Detecting Mycobacterium bovis and related mycobacteria in wild carnivores is notoriously difficult, complicating both research and management. This overview surveys the diagnostic toolkit applied to f…

Leopards have perhaps the broadest diet of any large cat, recorded eating a vast array of species from large antelope to rodents, birds, reptiles, and invertebrates. This overview synthesizes scat and…

Captive big cats have become subjects of cognitive testing that reveals their learning abilities and informs enrichment. This overview surveys research using touchscreen and apparatus-based discrimina…

Felids living at the edges of cities, such as bobcats and mountain lions in California, face a distinctive disease landscape shaped by human activity. This overview surveys the disease ecology of urba…

Lions are unusually social among cats, and their pride structure shapes how pathogens spread through populations. This overview surveys the interplay between lion social organization and disease trans…

This overview synthesises the widely replicated finding that proximity to forest or natural cover strongly predicts big-cat depredation on livestock, with attacks declining as distance from the forest…

Long-term study of marked lions has shown that many animals carry antibodies to canine distemper virus without dying, raising questions about when infection is lethal. This overview surveys research d…

Cheetahs are largely diurnal, hunting in the cooler parts of the day, a pattern shaped partly by the need to avoid dominant nocturnal competitors. This overview synthesizes research showing that cheet…

This overview examines genetic and fossil evidence bearing on when the cave lion lineage split from the ancestors of modern lions. Ancient DNA studies estimate that Panthera spelaea diverged from the…

An overview of the substantial toll free-ranging domestic cats take on wild birds, small mammals, reptiles and amphibians in urban, suburban and rural landscapes. Both owned outdoor cats and unowned f…

Because domestic dogs often act as the reservoir feeding canine distemper into wild carnivores, vaccinating dogs around protected areas has become a key conservation tool. This overview surveys the lo…

In felids housed or living in groups, social rank can influence which individuals reproduce and how successfully. This overview surveys how dominance hierarchies relate to reproduction in cats, includ…

African lions inhabit savannas where drought and water availability strongly shape prey abundance and distribution, making them sensitive to climate variability. This overview surveys how droughts red…

Drought intensifies competition between people and predators for scarce water, forage, and livestock, often heightening human-wildlife conflict. This overview surveys how dry periods push cats toward…

Before genomic sequencing, researchers used protein and allozyme variation to compare lion populations and found that the isolated Asiatic lions of Gir harbored strikingly little biochemical genetic v…

This overview reviews technological and community early-warning systems designed to alert people to the presence of big cats before conflict occurs. It synthesises approaches including GPS- and geofen…

The last wild Asiatic lions persist in and around the Gir forest of Gujarat, India, where their ecology differs notably from African populations. This overview reviews how Gir lions live in smaller gr…

Conserving big cats in a human-dominated world depends on applying their ecology to the challenge of coexistence. This overview synthesizes how understanding prey requirements, ranging, dispersal, and…

A survey of how the kills of large cats function as a form of ecosystem engineering, structuring scavenger communities, nutrient flow and local biodiversity. Because predators such as pumas, leopards…

Many lion populations now persist in protected areas surrounded by human land use, and the reserve edge is a zone of elevated risk. This overview synthesizes studies showing how lions that range near…

Collecting semen from nondomestic cats usually requires electroejaculation under anesthesia, a standardized technique that allows evaluation and banking of sperm. This overview surveys how electroejac…

Beyond the well-known feline immunodeficiency and leukemia viruses, felid genomes carry endogenous retroviruses and other retroelements that record ancient infections. This overview surveys the spectr…

Infectious disease can cause sudden, severe declines in lion populations, as shown by canine distemper outbreaks. This overview reviews how a 1990s distemper epidemic killed a large fraction of Sereng…

Counting lions reliably is surprisingly difficult, and methodological choices strongly affect the numbers that drive conservation decisions. This overview surveys techniques used to estimate lion abun…