🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Much of Sumatra's lowland forest grows on carbon-rich peat that, when drained for plantations, becomes highly flammable, fueling the recurrent fire and haze crises that also degrade tiger habitat. Thi…

Zoos and breeding programs maintain studbooks to manage the genetics of captive cat populations, aiming to retain diversity and avoid inbreeding across generations. This overview surveys how pedigree…

Play is prominent in young big cats and persists in enriched captive settings, where it supports physical development and welfare. This overview surveys research on social and object play in lion, tig…

Habitat loss and fragmentation increasingly isolate cat populations into small patches separated by inhospitable terrain, reducing effective population size and gene flow. This overview surveys how co…

A survey of the strong, general relationship between the abundance of prey and the density of the carnivores that depend on them, a cornerstone of predator ecology. Across species and systems, predato…

A survey of the minimum prey abundance large cats need to maintain viable populations and why prey depletion is a leading cause of felid decline. Because predator density scales with prey biomass, the…

Many structurally intact Asian forests now hold few or no tigers because their prey has been hunted out, a phenomenon known as the empty forest syndrome. This overview synthesizes evidence that unsust…

Many forests across tiger range remain structurally intact yet hold few or no tigers because their large prey have been hunted out, a condition often called the empty forest syndrome. This overview su…

An overview of how the loss of large ungulate prey to human hunting hollows out tiger habitat even where forest cover remains, producing empty forests that cannot support tigers. Because tigers requir…

This overview synthesises evidence that depletion of wild ungulate prey, through poaching, the bushmeat trade, and habitat loss, drives tigers toward livestock and, in extreme cases, people. It review…

Sundarbans tigers rely on prey such as spotted deer (chital) and wild boar, whose abundance depends on mangrove forest condition and freshwater availability. This overview surveys how climate-driven c…

An overview of the behavioral defenses ungulates and other prey deploy against felid predators, from vigilance scanning to alarm signaling and habitat avoidance. Because cats are stealthy ambush hunte…

Since the first lightly sequenced domestic cat genome, feline genomics has advanced to highly contiguous, chromosome-level assemblies for the domestic cat and an expanding set of wild species. This ov…

Protected areas are the cornerstone of felid conservation, but their effectiveness at stopping habitat loss varies and is tested by mounting land-use and climate pressure. This overview surveys method…

Individual reserves are rarely large enough to sustain wide-ranging cats on their own, so conservation increasingly relies on networks of protected areas linked by corridors, and this overview examine…

Tigers and several other large cats produce prusten, also called chuffing, a soft fluttering sound made by blowing air through the nostrils with the mouth closed. This overview surveys observations th…

Beyond the Sundarbans, tigers across Asia face varied climate exposure layered onto severe habitat loss, prompting range-wide vulnerability thinking. This overview surveys how climate projections, sea…

This overview synthesises the role of specialised rapid-response teams in managing human-tiger conflict, from Village Tiger Response Teams in the Sundarbans to forest-department units across India and…

A central question in distemper ecology is how a virus historically associated with dogs repeatedly jumps into cats. This overview surveys research on the molecular basis of canine distemper virus hos…

In the Russian Far East, orphaned and conflict-involved Amur tiger cubs have been rehabilitated and released back into the wild, including into areas where tigers had become scarce, offering a distinc…

This overview examines how religious beliefs, sacred associations, and cultural traditions foster, or sometimes undermine, tolerance for big cats. It synthesises cases such as reverence for tigers and…

Satellite remote sensing is the backbone of measuring habitat change across the vast ranges of wild cats. This overview surveys the data and methods, optical imagery for land-cover classification, rad…

Beyond outright inundation, sea-level rise and reduced freshwater flow are increasing salinity in the Sundarbans, shifting mangrove species composition and forest productivity that underpin tiger habi…

This overview examines the persistent gap between perceived and actual risk in human-big cat conflict, a theme cutting across lion, tiger, leopard, puma, and jaguar systems. It synthesises research sh…

Roads affect cats through direct mortality and through the barrier effect that fragments populations, a central theme in carnivore conservation. This overview surveys research quantifying how highways…

Roads fragment habitat, kill animals, and act as barriers to movement, making road ecology an important field for carnivore conservation. This overview surveys research on how roads affect big cats an…

Whole-genome sequencing reveals long stretches where an individual inherited identical segments from both parents, called runs of homozygosity, which accumulate with inbreeding and small population si…

This overview compares the killing strategies of sabertooth cats with those of conical-toothed felids such as modern lions and tigers. Living big cats typically use short, robust canines and a powerfu…

This overview examines how environmental stressors, rising salinity, sea-level rise, cyclones, and freshwater scarcity, may influence tiger behaviour and human-tiger conflict in the Sundarbans. It syn…

Felids span from sub-kilogram wildcats to lions and tigers of well over a hundred kilograms, and body size profoundly shapes how they move. This overview reviews how speed, acceleration, jumping abili…