🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

The flehmen response is a distinctive open-mouthed, lip-curled grimace cats make to draw scent molecules into the vomeronasal organ. This overview surveys the behavior and its function, in which a cat…

In floodplain strongholds such as the Pantanal, the annual flood pulse governs jaguar ecology. This overview synthesizes how rising and falling waters concentrate prey on shrinking patches of dry land…

This overview surveys the fossil record of the jaguar lineage and its spread into the Americas. The jaguar, Panthera onca, traces its origins to Old World pantherines whose descendants crossed into No…

The lynx lineage has a rich fossil record that informs the origin of modern species. This overview surveys the paleontological history, including the Issoire lynx, Lynx issiodorensis, an extinct Plioc…

This overview surveys the fossil evidence for the evolution of the tiger, Panthera tigris, centred on Asia where the species and its relatives arose. Early forms such as the Pliocene Panthera zdanskyi…

This overview surveys the fossil history of the leopard, Panthera pardus, one of the most widely distributed living big cats. Fossils document the leopard's presence across Africa and Eurasia through…

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.…

Cat purrs are notable for their low fundamental frequency, commonly reported in the range of roughly 20 to 30 hertz with energy extending higher, and this overview surveys measurements and interpretat…

This overview describes two remarkably preserved cave lion cubs, nicknamed Sparta and Boris, recovered from the permafrost of Yakutia in northeastern Siberia. Frozen for tens of thousands of years, th…

Play is energetically costly and potentially risky, yet pervasive in young cats, prompting debate over its functions. This overview surveys the major hypotheses, including play as practice for predati…

When exposed to catnip or silver vine, cats characteristically rub their faces and bodies against the material and roll in it. This overview surveys the function of this rubbing and rolling, which res…

Advances in sequencing, noninvasive sampling, and analysis are transforming how genetics informs cat conservation. This overview surveys emerging directions, including reference-quality genomes for ev…

This overview examines the fundamental mechanical compromise that shaped sabertooth skulls: achieving a gape wide enough to clear elongated canines came at the cost of bite force. Opening the jaws to…

The Asiatic lion survives as a single population in and around the Gir Forest of western India, having recovered from perhaps a few dozen individuals around the start of the twentieth century. This ov…

The Asiatic lion of India's Gir Forest is the last surviving lion population in Asia and has long been treated as a distinct subspecies, Panthera leo persica. This overview examines its genetic status…

The Scottish wildcat, the last wild felid native to Britain, is threatened less by direct persecution than by hybridization with domestic and feral cats that has blurred its genetic distinctiveness. T…

The familiar tabby and the wild rosette share developmental roots, and this overview reviews the genetics behind cat coat patterns. Research has identified genes and developmental processes that estab…

Cat coat colours and patterns are a classic teaching example of genetics, and this overview surveys the genes and interactions behind them. It covers the X-linked orange gene that produces the sex-lin…

Most domestic cats are random-bred, but a few dozen recognized breeds have been developed over the past century, providing a resource for genetic study. This overview surveys research using genome-wid…

Cats are crepuscular and nocturnal hunters with eyes adapted for low-light performance, including a reflective tapetum lucidum and a rod-rich retina. This overview surveys the genetic and developmenta…

Crosses between lions and tigers in captivity produce ligers and tigons, hybrids notable for unusual growth patterns, with ligers often growing larger than either parent. This overview surveys the bio…

Black jaguars, often called black panthers, occur naturally within jaguar populations and result from a dominant mutation in the melanocortin-1 receptor gene, distinct from the recessive melanism of t…

The orange coloration of cats is governed by an X-linked locus, which is why most calico and tortoiseshell cats are female and display a patchwork of orange and black created by X-chromosome inactivat…

White lions, associated with the Timbavati region of South Africa, display a pale cream to near-white coat caused by a recessive color variant rather than true albinism, since they retain pigmented ey…

Cats are obligate carnivores, physiologically dependent on a meat diet, and comparative genomics has uncovered the molecular underpinnings of this specialization. This overview surveys findings that f…

Molecular work prompted a revision in which the African golden cat moved from Profelis into Caracal, formally becoming Caracal aurata. This overview examines the evidence and reasoning behind the chan…

Closed-population capture-recapture models assume the population neither gains nor loses individuals during the survey, through births, deaths, immigration, or emigration, an assumption central to est…

Cats have notably higher dietary protein requirements than many other domestic species because their metabolism is geared toward continuous use of protein for energy and gluconeogenesis, with limited…

Feline infectious peritonitis was first described as a distinct clinical and pathologic entity in the 1960s, before its coronavirus etiology was understood, with early reports characterizing the fibri…

This overview traces the long history of competing models for how sabertooths used their elongated canines. Early ideas ranged from stabbing thrusts to a clamp-type bite, but each faced the problem th…