🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Managing the size and genetics of captive felid populations sometimes requires preventing reproduction in animals that are genetically overrepresented or surplus to program needs. This overview survey…

Cooperation is rare among felids, concentrated in the social lion and in cheetah and feral-cat male coalitions, making the family a useful contrast for theories of cooperation. This overview surveys r…

In induced-ovulating felids the chance that mating triggers ovulation rises with the number and spacing of copulations, suggesting a threshold of cumulative stimulation that the female's neuroendocrin…

Vaccination guidelines from bodies such as the AAFP and WSAVA classify feline vaccines as core, recommended for all cats, including panleukopenia, herpesvirus, calicivirus, and rabies, and non-core, r…

Before springing, a cat crouches and gathers itself, and this overview reviews the role of this countermovement in jump performance. The preparatory crouch loads the hindlimb muscles and tendons and a…

The kitten visual cortex has a critical period during which experience strongly shapes its wiring, a concept established largely through feline research. This overview surveys the idea of the critical…

Dark adaptation is the process by which an eye recovers sensitivity after exposure to bright light, as pigment regenerates and neural gain rises. This overview surveys what is known about the time cou…

The mackerel-striped pattern is ancestral in cats, while the swirled blotched tabby is a recent variant produced by mutations in the Taqpep gene. This overview examines how ancient DNA and historical…

Declawing, or onychectomy, removes not just the claw but the terminal toe bone, and this overview surveys its biomechanical and welfare consequences. Because the claw grows from that bone, eliminating…

Large serosurveys document a substantial decline in FeLV prevalence across many countries since the 1980s, attributed to testing, vaccination, removal of infected cats from breeding and group settings…

A cat's sense of smell can diminish with age, and because olfaction strongly influences feline appetite, this decline can affect eating. This overview surveys age-related changes in feline olfaction a…

The same species that lives solitarily where prey is scarce forms dense colonies where food concentrates, and this flexibility makes the cat a model for density-dependent sociality. This overview surv…

Ambush predators must judge the distance to prey accurately before striking, and pupil shape can influence the depth cues available. This overview surveys the proposal that vertical-slit pupils create…

The domestic cat traces to a desert-adapted wild ancestor, and this overview reviews how that heritage shapes its water physiology today. Descended from the African wildcat of arid regions, domestic c…

Whiskers respond not only to direct contact but to subtle movements of air, allowing cats to sense nearby objects and motion without touching them. This overview surveys how vibrissae detect air curre…

Mice communicate using ultrasonic vocalizations well above the human hearing range, and these calls fall squarely within what cats can detect. This overview surveys the intersection of rodent ultrason…

The reflective tapetum is not fully mature at birth, and its development parallels the broader maturation of the kitten visual system. This overview surveys what is known about how the tapetum forms a…

The familiar reaction to catnip does not appear until a kitten is several months old, making it a developmentally timed sensory behavior. This overview surveys the onset of the catnip response, which…

Diabetic ketoacidosis is a life-threatening complication of feline diabetes in which insulin deficiency and counter-regulatory hormones drive ketone production, metabolic acidosis, dehydration, and el…

Controlling blood phosphorus through dietary restriction and phosphate binders is a cornerstone of CKD management in cats, supported by evidence that phosphorus retention drives mineral and bone disor…

A cat digestive tract reflects its meat diet, and this overview reviews how carnivore gut anatomy suits processing animal tissue. Cats have a relatively short, simple intestine compared with herbivore…

The funnel shape of the cat's pinna collects sound and boosts sensitivity in the direction it faces, providing directional acoustic gain. This overview surveys how the pinna concentrates sound energy…

Rough play among cats can resemble fighting, and distinguishing genuine play from aggression is important for welfare and household harmony. This overview surveys research on the behavioural markers t…

Beyond learning from other cats, researchers have asked whether cats can copy or learn from human demonstrators. This overview surveys exploratory studies, including reports that cats can be trained t…

Feral cats have been implicated in numerous extinctions of island species, and this overview surveys the documented cases and patterns. It examines examples of birds, mammals and reptiles lost or driv…

Because the domestic cat and its wild relatives remain fully interfertile, hybridization is a persistent conservation concern, especially for the European wildcat, Felis silvestris silvestris, in plac…

Successive improvements to the domestic cat reference genome have made the species a tractable model for genetics and biomedicine. This overview surveys the development of cat genome assemblies and as…

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…

Using domestic cats to gestate embryos of related wild species offers a practical surrogate system for conservation reproductive technology. This overview surveys the use of domestic cat recipients to…

Whether cats form dominance hierarchies has long been debated, since their social structure differs from the linear hierarchies of many group-living mammals. This overview surveys research on agonisti…