🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

The bay cat, Catopuma badia, is endemic to Borneo and among the least known of all cats, with very few observations or specimens. This overview examines its taxonomy, including its placement in the ba…

This overview surveys the fossil history of the puma lineage, the New World group that includes the living puma and jaguarundi and is closely tied to the extinct American cheetah-like cat Miracinonyx.…

The jaguarundi is an unusual, weasel-like small cat of the Americas whose taxonomy was clarified by molecular phylogenetics. This overview explains how genetic data placed the jaguarundi in the puma l…

Beyond killing prey, big cats shape ecosystems through the fear they inspire, altering where and how prey forage. This overview synthesizes research on the landscape of fear, in which the risk of pred…

The puma has the largest latitudinal range of any wild land mammal in the Western Hemisphere, occupying habitats from boreal forest and western mountains to deserts, grasslands, swamps, and tropical j…

One of the eight felid lineages groups three superficially different cats: the puma, the cheetah, and the jaguarundi. This overview explains how molecular phylogenetics revealed this surprising relati…

One of the most counterintuitive results of felid molecular phylogenetics was that the cheetah, long treated as a unique outlier, belongs to a New World puma lineage alongside the puma and the jaguaru…

Pumas are solitary cats with large, overlapping ranges in which males associate with females only briefly during estrus. This overview surveys what telemetry and field studies reveal about puma reprod…

The puma once carried more than thirty named subspecies across its vast range, but molecular work drastically reduced this count. This overview explains how genetic analysis revealed that North Americ…

This overview surveys the two recognized species of the American cheetah-like cat, Miracinonyx trumani and Miracinonyx inexpectatus. Miracinonyx trumani is the more derived, strongly cursorial form, w…

Standard home ranges flatten an animal's world onto a two-dimensional map, but cats in mountainous terrain move through strongly three-dimensional space, and their ranges shift across seasons. This ov…

This overview synthesises research on whether wildlife-tourism revenue increases local tolerance for big cats by offsetting conflict costs. It reviews cases from jaguar tourism in the Pantanal, lion t…

An overview of how large cats can structure ecosystems from the top down, with effects rippling through herbivores to vegetation and beyond. By killing and frightening herbivores, apex felids such as…

This overview examines research on pumas persisting in and around the urbanised landscapes of southern California, epitomised by P-22, the mountain lion that lived for years in Los Angeles's Griffith…

For pumas living in and around Los Angeles, collisions with vehicles on freeways and surface roads are among the most frequent documented causes of death. This overview synthesises telemetry-based mor…

Wild felids living near cities are exposed to pathogens including feline immunodeficiency virus, feline leukemia virus and others, sometimes shared with domestic cats, raising conservation and One Hea…

This overview reviews husbandry interventions promoted to reduce jaguar and puma depredation on cattle in the Venezuelan llanos and elsewhere, including the use of water buffalo, which form defensive…

Water sources and riparian corridors are disproportionately important to felids in human-dominated landscapes, providing drinking water, prey, cover and movement routes through otherwise hostile devel…

Pumas, also called cougars or mountain lions, are commonly held in zoos and frequently appear among rescued cats in sanctuaries, often arriving from the pet trade or roadside attractions. This overvie…

Wildlife crossings, from large vegetated overpasses to underpasses and culverts, are a primary engineering response to the roads that fragment felid populations near cities. This overview synthesises…

Wildlife overpasses and underpasses are increasingly used to reconnect carnivore populations split by highways, with high-profile projects designed for pumas. This overview surveys the evidence that c…

This study used fine-scale GPS and accelerometer data from pumas in the Santa Cruz Mountains to show that cougars respond to human development at multiple spatial scales, avoiding developed areas in w…

Wilmers CC, Wang Y, Nickel B, Houghtaling P, Shakeri Y, Allen ML, Kermish-Wells J, Yovovich V, Williams T · PLoS ONE · 2013

This comprehensive study screened thousands of samples from many felid species plus hyenas for feline immunodeficiency virus and sequenced isolates to map viral diversity. The authors confirmed that F…

J. L. Troyer, J. Pecon-Slattery, M. E. Roelke, et al. · Journal of Virology · 2005

Kruuk documented and analyzed cases where carnivores kill far more prey than they can consume, challenging the assumption that predators only take what they need. Drawing on spotted hyena and other ca…

Kruuk, H. · Journal of Zoology · 1972

Vickers and colleagues followed GPS-collared pumas across the rapidly urbanizing landscape of southern California to quantify survival and identify the causes of death driving population decline. They…

T. Winston Vickers, Jessica N. Sanchez, Christine K. Johnson, Scott A. Morrison, Randy Botta, Trish Smith, Brian S. Cohen, Patrick R. Huber, Holly B. Ernest, Walter M. Boyce · PLOS ONE · 2015

Drawing on years of telemetry across southern California, this study quantified survival rates and causes of death for pumas living in landscapes increasingly fragmented by roads and development. Vehi…

Vickers TW, Sanchez JN, Johnson CK, Morrison SA, Botta R, Smith T, Cohen BS, Huber PR, Ernest HB, Boyce WM · PLoS ONE · 2015

This influential paper argued that the modern cheetah lineage had deep roots in the New World, drawing attention to the extinct North American cheetah-like cats now placed in the genus Miracinonyx. Ad…

Daniel B. Adams · Science · 1979

This study characterized the health and genetic status of the Florida panther, a tiny, isolated puma population reduced to a few dozen animals. The authors documented inbreeding-associated problems in…

M. E. Roelke, J. S. Martenson, S. J. O’Brien · Current Biology · 1993

This review argued that the proliferation of animal-borne sensors, including accelerometers, magnetometers, and physiological loggers, had ushered in a golden age in which ecologists could measure not…

Christopher C. Wilmers, Barry Nickel, Caleb M. Bryce, Justine A. Smith, Rachel E. Wheat, Yiwei Wang · Ecology · 2015

This landmark global meta-analysis showed that mammals across the world, including many carnivores, increase their nocturnal activity in response to human disturbance, becoming more active at night ev…

Gaynor KM, Hojnowski CE, Carter NH, Brashares JS · Science · 2018