🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Accurate tiger numbers are central to conservation, and genetic capture-recapture using noninvasive samples complements camera trapping to estimate abundance and density. This overview surveys how DNA…

Genetic studies have become central to understanding how tiger populations are linked across fragmented landscapes. This overview synthesizes work using DNA from scats, hair, and tissue to measure gen…

The South China tiger, considered the ancestral or stem population of modern tigers by some analyses, is likely extinct in the wild and survives only in a small, intensively managed captive population…

Several tiger populations vanished in the 20th century, including the Caspian, Bali, and Javan tigers, and ancient or historical DNA has been used to clarify their relationships. This overview surveys…

The Caspian tiger of Central and Western Asia went extinct in the twentieth century, but genetic analysis of museum specimens revealed a close relationship to the surviving Amur tiger, suggesting the…

Captive big cats often live well beyond their wild lifespans, so managing ageing animals has become a central welfare task. This overview surveys geriatric felid care: recognising and treating chronic…

Captive big cats now routinely reach advanced ages, and zoos have developed geriatric care programs addressing arthritis, dental disease, kidney and heart disease, cancer, and quality-of-life assessme…

Tigresses carry their young for roughly three to three and a half months and typically give birth to two to four cubs in a sheltered den. This overview surveys data on tiger gestation length, litter s…

Gestation in felids scales broadly with body size, ranging from roughly two months in small cats to around three and a half months in the largest species. This overview compiles comparative data on pr…

Besides the white tiger, captive tigers occasionally display a golden or strawberry coloration with pale orange fur and faint cinnamon stripes, as well as theoretical combinations such as the snow-whi…

A survey of how prey use group living to reduce predation by cats, through the many-eyes effect, dilution, confusion and collective defense. Larger herds detect stalking felids sooner and dilute indiv…

An overview of how the spatial scale at which predators and prey use the landscape, their habitat domains, determines the strength and form of fear effects. When an ambush felid has a narrow, predicta…

Big cats select habitat at multiple scales, balancing the need for prey, cover for stalking, water, and shelter against the risks posed by competitors and humans. This overview synthesizes research sh…

Hand-rearing orphaned or maternally rejected big cat cubs requires specialized veterinary and husbandry knowledge covering appropriate milk replacers matched to species composition, prevention of nutr…

Whether felid cubs are raised by their mothers or by humans has lasting effects on behaviour, social competence and welfare. This overview surveys the comparative evidence: hand-reared cats may show a…

Translocating wild felids for conservation, conflict mitigation, or population management involves significant veterinary considerations, including pre-release health screening, disease risk assessmen…

Most big cats organize their use of space through a land-tenure system in which residents hold home ranges advertised by scent and maintained partly through avoidance. This overview synthesizes the ge…

The advent of GPS collars and biologging sensors has revolutionized the study of big-cat movement, hunting, and energetics. This overview synthesizes how high-resolution location data revealed kill si…

Tiger taxonomy has long been contested, with traditional schemes recognizing up to nine subspecies, several now extinct, while some genetic analyses and the Cat Classification Task Force proposed coll…

Human chorionic gonadotropin mimics luteinizing hormone and is widely used to trigger ovulation in felids after follicular development has been stimulated. This overview surveys how the hormone is adm…

As tiger populations recover and human settlements press against reserves, conflict over livestock depredation and human casualties becomes a central conservation challenge. This overview surveys rese…

Hung carcasses and bungee-suspended food are used to encourage captive cats to pull, leap and feed in physically demanding, naturalistic ways. This overview surveys studies that pair such feeding enri…

Large felids under anesthesia frequently develop hypoxemia, low blood oxygen, due to the effects of recumbency and body mass on lung function, hypoventilation from anesthetic drugs, and ventilation-pe…

This overview synthesises research on the concept of problem individuals, specific big cats responsible for repeated attacks on livestock or people, and how to identify and manage them. It reviews evi…

Applying in vitro fertilization to endangered cats aims to produce embryos from valuable individuals, including those that cannot breed naturally, for transfer to surrogates or for banking. This overv…

Inbreeding in small captive populations can reduce fertility, increase juvenile mortality, and cause physical and reproductive abnormalities, collectively termed inbreeding depression. This overview s…

Small, closed captive populations risk losing genetic diversity, raising the chance that deleterious recessive alleles pair up and reduce health, fertility and survival, a phenomenon known as inbreedi…

This overview synthesises research on how individual big cats develop man-eating behaviour, integrating evidence from Tsavo lions, Sundarbans and Champawat tigers, and Indian leopards. It reviews the…

Most cats are induced ovulators, meaning that the surge of luteinizing hormone needed to release eggs is triggered by the physical stimulation of mating rather than occurring spontaneously on a fixed…

As in lions, the takeover of a tigress's range by a new male can lead to the killing of her dependent cubs, after which she returns to breeding condition. This overview synthesizes field evidence for…