🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Cats are often noted for an exceptionally large ratio between their fully constricted and fully dilated pupil areas, a consequence of the slit geometry. This overview surveys measurements and discussi…

Many cats rock or wiggle their hindquarters just before pouncing, and this overview reviews proposed explanations for this behaviour. Suggestions include priming the leg muscles for an explosive launc…

This overview examines the growing emphasis on theory of change, explicit logic linking activities to intended outcomes, and rigorous evaluation in human-carnivore conflict interventions. It synthesis…

Felid species span tropical jungles, deserts and high mountains, so meeting their thermal needs in captivity, often in non-native climates, is a real welfare challenge. This overview surveys thermal w…

Whether a cat's distribution is limited directly by temperature or indirectly through prey, vegetation, and competitors shapes how it will respond to warming. This overview surveys what is known about…

As temperatures rise, cats may adjust their activity patterns to avoid heat, shifting toward more nocturnal or crepuscular behavior, with consequences for hunting and human overlap. This overview surv…

Cities create urban heat islands and altered microclimates that can impose thermal stress on felids, influencing their use of shade, water and cool refuges, especially as climate warming intensifies.…

Maintaining safe body temperature is a critical concern during felid immobilization, as captured cats can become dangerously hyperthermic from exertion and heat in warm climates or hypothermic during…

Cats maintain a stable body temperature across varied conditions, and this overview reviews their thermoregulatory strategies. Cats balance heat production and loss through behaviour, circulation, and…

Newborn kittens cannot regulate their body temperature well and depend on sensing warmth to stay close to their mother and littermates. This overview surveys neonatal thermotaxis, the tendency of youn…

Thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency causes serious neurologic disease in cats, including ataxia, seizures, and a characteristic ventroflexion of the neck, and has occurred from diets high in thiaminase-c…

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…

The overwhelming majority of feline hyperthyroidism results from benign adenomatous hyperplasia or adenoma of the thyroid gland, frequently involving both lobes, with only a small minority caused by m…

Lions and other wild felids host a range of tick-borne blood parasites including Babesia, Anaplasma, Ehrlichia and Hepatozoon, usually carried without obvious harm but capable of contributing to disea…

Across much of Asia tigers and leopards occur together, and their coexistence is mediated by differences in prey size and behavior. This overview synthesizes research showing that leopards shift towar…

This overview reviews human-tiger and human-leopard conflict in Nepal's Terai Arc, where recovering tiger populations in and around Chitwan and Bardia overlap with dense rural settlement and buffer-zo…

While tigers recovered in parts of South Asia, populations across mainland Southeast Asia, including Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and much of Myanmar, collapsed toward functional extinction. This overview…

Central India holds a network of tiger reserves embedded in a matrix of forest, farmland, roads, and mines, making connectivity between reserves vital for genetic exchange and recolonization. This ove…

The Terai Arc Landscape, stretching along the India-Nepal border, is a flagship for corridor-based tiger conservation, aiming to link a chain of reserves through forest corridors so tigers can dispers…

Thousands of tigers are held in captive breeding operations, particularly in parts of East and Southeast Asia, fueling a long-running debate over whether legal or illegal trade in captive-bred tiger p…

Large-scale captive tiger breeding facilities, particularly those linked to trade in tiger parts, present severe and systemic welfare concerns. This overview surveys the welfare dimensions of so-calle…

Within their territories tigers select habitat features that aid stalking, provide shade, and offer water. This overview synthesizes telemetry and camera-trap studies showing that tigers favor dense c…

Capturing wild tigers for collaring, translocation, or treatment of injuries and conflict situations requires carefully planned chemical immobilization given the species' endangered status, solitary b…

How often a tiger must kill depends on prey size, the cat's body mass, reproductive state, and competition at carcasses. This overview synthesizes GPS-cluster and observational studies estimating that…

This overview synthesizes telemetry and genetic studies of how young tigers leave their natal territories to establish their own ranges across India's reserve network. Subadult tigers, especially male…

This overview examines how India's tiger recovery, driven by protection and prey restoration, has increased conflict at reserve boundaries as growing populations disperse into human-dominated land. It…

A survey of how tiger predation interacts with ungulate prey in Indian reserves and why prey abundance is the master variable for tiger recovery. Tigers prefer large prey such as sambar, gaur and wild…

Tigers are capable of killing very large prey, and their diet centers on medium to large ungulates wherever these are available. This overview synthesizes kill and scat studies showing that species su…

Nepal became an early flagship for the tiger doubling agenda, reporting substantial population growth in its lowland Terai reserves such as Chitwan and Bardia. This overview surveys research on what d…

India has rebuilt tiger populations in reserves where they were lost by translocating wild tigers, most notably at Panna and Sariska, and this overview surveys the science of those efforts. Studies do…