🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

During the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers surveyed domestic and free-roaming cats for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies to gauge how often the virus moved from people into felines. This overview synthesizes seros…

This overview surveys studies of the fine structure of sabertooth canines, focusing on the serrations, or denticles, along their cutting edges and the internal histology of the teeth. Dirk-toothed cat…

Camera-trap and telemetry studies describe the serval as primarily crepuscular and nocturnal, with notable bouts of diurnal activity especially in cooler weather or where human disturbance is low. Thi…

The serval ranges widely across sub-Saharan Africa, with relict populations in the far north, and is closely tied to well-watered grasslands, reedbeds, and the margins of wetlands and floodplains. Thi…

The serval possesses proportionally the largest ears of any cat, and research into its sensory ecology emphasizes how acoustic detection underpins its hunting. This overview draws together evidence th…

This overview examines the serval ecological dependence on moist habitats, drawing on studies from East and Southern African wetlands. Floodplains, papyrus swamps, and grassy marsh edges concentrate t…

The serval, a long-legged grassland and wetland specialist, persists in agricultural and even industrial landscapes across parts of Africa, exploiting rodent-rich pastures, wetlands and field margins…

A growing body of camera-trap work documents servals persisting in agricultural mosaics, irrigated farmland, and even some peri-urban edges where wetlands and rodents remain. This overview synthesizes…

The sex ratio of felid litters and any biases in maternal investment toward sons or daughters bear on population dynamics and evolutionary theory. This overview surveys evidence for sex ratio patterns…

In many felids, males range more widely and are detected differently than females, and ignoring these differences biases spatially explicit capture-recapture density estimates. This overview surveys h…

A survey of how male and female lions differ in the prey they hunt and the habitats in which they hunt, driven by pronounced sexual size dimorphism. Larger, more powerful males are better able to tack…

This overview examines whether Smilodon fatalis showed pronounced size differences between males and females, a question with implications for its social system. Because the La Brea sample is large, r…

In several big cats, males have larger, more robust skulls and stouter canines than females, and this overview reviews the patterns and their likely drivers. Such dimorphism is often linked to male-ma…

Infanticide by males is documented or inferred across many felid species, from lions to tigers, leopards, pumas, and others, wherever killing dependent young can hasten a female's next conception. Thi…

The effectiveness of wildlife crossings depends partly on shielding animals from the light and noise of adjacent traffic, factors that can deter wary felids from using overpasses and underpasses. This…

Cats spread across the globe largely as working passengers on boats, where they controlled rodents that ate cargo and gnawed rigging. This overview synthesizes archaeological, genetic and historical e…

The two cone classes underlying feline color vision are usually described as a short-wavelength (blue-sensitive) cone and a longer-wavelength (green to yellow-sensitive) cone. This survey reviews micr…

Some female felids ovulate or become reproductively receptive with few outward behavioral signs, a phenomenon called silent or behavioral estrus that complicates breeding management. This overview sur…

Whether to house shelter cats singly or in groups involves trade-offs between social opportunity, stress, disease transmission and space efficiency. This overview surveys research comparing the two: g…

The coat and skin together form a protective barrier, and this overview reviews their defensive functions. Fur shields the skin from sun, abrasion, and minor injury, while the skin itself guards again…

This overview surveys the cranial features of Miracinonyx that parallel those of the living cheetah, particularly modifications associated with high-speed running. Like Acinonyx, the more cursorial Mi…

Cat skulls vary in robustness and proportion, and this overview surveys how that variation tracks the size of prey a species typically takes. Cats that tackle relatively large prey tend to have more r…

Before and alongside molecular work, tiger subspecies were assessed by measuring skulls and body proportions. This overview explains how craniometric analyses, comparing dimensions across museum speci…

Cats naturally rest and sleep for much of the day, which complicates welfare interpretation because inactivity can reflect either healthy, contented rest or boredom, depression and learned helplessnes…

The vertical slit pupil of small cats is a striking feature, and this overview reviews why such pupils evolved. Comparative work links vertical slit pupils to small ambush predators active across a wi…

Agroforestry systems such as shade coffee and cacao, along with tree plantations and pasture-forest mosaics, can provide partial habitat for ocelots, margays, oncillas and jaguarundis across Latin Ame…

As agriculture and settlement advance into Neotropical forests, small cats face habitat loss, road mortality, retaliatory killing over poultry depredation, and competition with free-ranging dogs. This…

Wire snares are among the most pervasive and indiscriminate threats to big cats, killing or maiming tigers, leopards, lions, and other predators directly and decimating the prey populations they depen…

This overview reviews how wire snaring set for bushmeat indirectly drives big-cat conflict and mortality, a growing threat across Africa and Asia. It synthesises evidence that snares intended for ante…

Across Sumatra, widespread snaring depletes both tigers and their prey, hollowing out forests that still appear intact on satellite imagery. This overview surveys how indiscriminate wire snares set fo…