🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

A survey of the conditions under which big cats switch from hunting to scavenging, and what this means for their ecology. Although large felids lack the scavenging specializations of hyenas and vultur…

An overview of how predation by cats can influence the spread and prevalence of disease in their prey populations. By selectively removing sick, weak or behaviorally abnormal individuals, predators ma…

Cats, both domestic and wild, are the only definitive hosts in which Toxoplasma gondii completes sexual reproduction and sheds environmentally resistant oocysts. This overview surveys the ecology of t…

African lions carry their own feline immunodeficiency virus, FIV-Ple, which exists as several deeply divergent lineages that often co-circulate within and among populations. This overview synthesizes…

Beyond bovine tuberculosis, felids can be affected by other mycobacteria, including the agents of feline leprosy that cause nodular skin disease. This overview surveys what is known about these atypic…

Lion prides are built on female philopatry, with daughters typically remaining in their natal range while subadult males are forced out to become nomads. This overview examines how this sex-biased dis…

Female lions usually remain in their natal pride for life, producing prides composed of closely related females that cooperate in hunting and cub rearing. This overview surveys the pattern of female p…

This overview synthesises the use of fencing, from electrified perimeter fences around reserves to village-boundary barriers and predator-proof enclosures, to separate big cats from people and livesto…

Immobilizing free-ranging lions for collaring, health assessment, treatment, or research relies on established protocols typically combining dissociative anesthetics with alpha-2 agonists, delivered b…

This overview surveys how finite-element analysis transformed understanding of sabertooth killing mechanics by revealing an apparent paradox: animals like Smilodon had skulls poorly suited to withstan…

Although a pride is a stable social unit, its members are rarely all together; lions move in subgroups that split and merge in a fission-fusion pattern. This overview surveys research on how pride mem…

Although a pride is a stable membership group, its members are rarely all together at once. This overview reviews how lionesses split into subgroups that hunt, rest, and travel independently before re…

This overview reviews the use of flashing LED deterrent systems, including commercial Foxlights and the locally invented Lion Lights popularised by Kenyan inventor Richard Turere, to discourage noctur…

Forensic science has become a powerful tool against the illegal trade in big cat parts, allowing seized skins, bones, and other products to be identified to species, and sometimes to population or ind…

Captive big cats commonly fracture their large canine teeth through biting enclosure barriers, fighting, or chewing hard objects, exposing the pulp and causing pain and infection that require dental i…

The lion's roar carries for kilometres and serves multiple social functions, from advertising territory ownership to locating and coordinating with pride mates. This overview surveys research on roari…

This overview synthesises emerging priorities and frontiers in human-big cat conflict and coexistence research. It reviews calls for more rigorous impact evaluation, greater integration of social scie…

In many cats, one sex disperses farther than the other, with males typically moving while females remain near their natal range, a pattern that leaves distinct genetic footprints. This overview survey…

The end of the Pleistocene saw the loss of many large cats, including sabertooths, cave lions, American lions, and the American cheetah, as part of the broader megafaunal extinction. This overview sur…

The serval and the caracal are medium-sized African cats of the caracal lineage, both relatively widespread but facing localized pressures. This overview surveys their genetic relationships within the…

This overview surveys the distribution of the American lion across Pleistocene North America, where its fossils are known largely from areas south of the great continental ice sheets, extending into p…

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…

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…

This overview synthesises evidence on why deterrents, lights, sirens, scent, and visual scarecrows, often lose effectiveness as predators habituate. It examines the behavioural ecology of neophobia an…

Hemotropic mycoplasmas, formerly called Haemobartonella, attach to red blood cells and can cause infectious anemia in felids, with wild cats carrying these bacteria across many populations. This overv…

Lions once ranged across Africa, southeast Europe, the Middle East, and into India, but have lost the overwhelming majority of that historical distribution. This overview surveys research reconstructi…

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…

Leopards coexist with larger, dominant carnivores by avoiding them in space, time, and behavior. This overview synthesizes research showing how leopards select denser cover, shift activity to avoid pe…

A survey of how cooperative group hunting affects capture success in lions, one of the few social felids. Evidence shows that hunting success often increases with group size for large or difficult pre…

This overview reviews what the preserved hyoid bones of Smilodon suggest about the sounds the sabertooth may have made. In living cats, the structure of the hyoid apparatus correlates with whether a s…