🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This experimental study demonstrated that the mere sound of human voices induced fear responses cascading from pumas down to mice in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Playback of human speech caused pumas to…

Suraci JP, Clinchy M, Zanette LY, Wilmers CC · Ecology Letters · 2019

Suraci and colleagues extended the ecology-of-fear framework to whole communities, using playbacks of human voices across the Santa Cruz Mountains to test how fear of humans cascades through a food we…

Justin P. Suraci, Michael Clinchy, Liana Y. Zanette, Christopher C. Wilmers · Ecology Letters · 2019

Smith and colleagues, working with the Santa Cruz Puma Project, used playback experiments at puma kill sites, broadcasting human voices versus a control of frog calls, while monitoring the cats' behav…

Justine A. Smith, Justin P. Suraci, Michael Clinchy, Ayana Crawford, Devin Roberts, Liana Y. Zanette, Christopher C. Wilmers · Proceedings of the Royal Society B · 2017

Before the 2017 task force, the most widely cited global checklist of mammal taxonomy was Mammal Species of the World, whose carnivore section codified the accepted list of cat species and subspecies.…

Wozencraft WC (Wilson DE, Reeder DM eds) · Mammal Species of the World, 3rd ed. · 2005

This study documented a feline leukemia virus (FeLV) outbreak in the critically endangered Iberian lynx population of Donana, Spain. Through field surveillance, molecular diagnostics and pathology, th…

M. L. Meli, V. Cattori, F. Martínez, et al. · PLoS ONE · 2009

Lyons and colleagues identified the mutation responsible for polycystic kidney disease in cats, a common inherited disorder especially prevalent in Persian and related breeds that causes fluid-filled…

Leslie A. Lyons, David S. Biller, Carolyn A. Erdman, et al. · Journal of the American Society of Nephrology · 2004

When new males take over a pride they often kill dependent cubs to bring females back into estrus, and this study analysed how females resist. Lionesses defend cubs collectively, sometimes at injury r…

Craig Packer, Anne Pusey · The American Naturalist · 1983

Foster and colleagues compared the diets of jaguars and pumas in Belize using scat analysis along a gradient of human disturbance. They found the two big cats partition prey to some degree, with jagua…

Foster, R.J., Harmsen, B.J., Valkenburgh, B., Doncaster, C.P. · Journal of Zoology · 2010

Dantas and colleagues reviewed the use of food puzzles, devices that require cats to work to extract food, as an enrichment and management tool. Drawing on behavioural research, they argued that food…

Leticia M. S. Dantas, Mikel M. Delgado, Ingrid Johnson, C. A. Tony Buffington · Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery · 2016

Van Orsdol provided detailed measurements of lion hunting success in Uganda, relating capture rates to prey species, group size, habitat cover and time of day. He found that success was higher at nigh…

Van Orsdol, K.G. · African Journal of Ecology · 1984

Jedrzejewski and colleagues studied Eurasian lynx predation in Poland's Bialowieza Forest, quantifying kill rates, prey selection and the lynx's contribution to roe deer and red deer mortality. They f…

Jedrzejewski, W., Schmidt, K., Milkowski, L., Jedrzejewska, B. & Okarma, H. · Acta Theriologica · 1993

Using genetic samples from pumas across southern California, this study revealed that freeways and urban development had carved the regional population into fragments with reduced gene flow and signs…

Ernest HB, Vickers TW, Morrison SA, Buchalski MR, Boyce WM · PLoS ONE · 2014

This study documented the first confirmed natural SARS-CoV-2 infections in big cats, occurring in tigers and lions at the Bronx Zoo early in the COVID-19 pandemic. After several cats developed respira…

D. McAloose, M. Laverack, L. Wang, et al. · mBio · 2020

This classic study analysed the skull architecture of sabertooth cats to explain how the distinctive cranial features functioned together during the killing bite. The authors examined how the enlarged…

Sharon B. Emerson, Leonard Radinsky · Paleobiology · 1980

A companion to the hindlimb study, this work dissected and quantified the cheetah forelimb musculature, again reporting muscle masses, fascicle lengths, and physiological cross-sectional areas in a co…

Hudson, P.E.; Corr, S.A.; Lee, R.C.; Wilson, A.M. · Journal of Anatomy · 2011

This detailed dissection-based study quantified the muscle architecture of the cheetah hindlimb, recording muscle masses, fascicle lengths, and physiological cross-sectional areas and comparing them w…

Hudson, P.E.; Corr, S.A.; Lee, R.C.; Wilson, A.M. · Journal of Anatomy · 2011

The companion to their numerical-response study, this paper measured how the kill rate of individual lynx and coyotes changed with snowshoe hare density across the Kluane cycle. O'Donoghue and colleag…

O'Donoghue, M., Boutin, S., Krebs, C.J., Zuleta, G., Murray, D.L. & Hofer, E.J. · Ecology · 1998

This landmark study revealed that cheetahs possess extraordinarily low genetic variation, so low that skin grafts exchanged between unrelated individuals were not rejected, indicating near-uniformity…

O'Brien SJ, Roelke ME, Marker L, et al. · Science · 1985

This foundational paper reported that the cheetah carries extraordinarily low genetic variation across allozyme and other molecular markers, far below that of typical outbred mammals. The authors docu…

Stephen J. O'Brien, David E. Wildt, David Goldman, Carl R. Merril, Mitchell Bush · Science · 1985

This study evaluated the landmark 1995 intervention in which eight female Texas pumas were released into Florida to counteract the inbreeding crisis of the endangered Florida panther. Tracking the pop…

Warren E. Johnson, David P. Onorato, Stephen J. O'Brien, et al. · Science · 2010

This landmark study documented extreme genetic uniformity in cheetahs, with the species showing almost no variation at many loci and accepting reciprocal skin grafts as if genetically identical. The a…

S. J. O’Brien, M. E. Roelke, L. Marker, et al. · Science · 1985

Building on earlier allozyme work, this study combined skin-graft acceptance experiments, semen analysis, and assays of genetic markers to argue that the cheetah's extreme genetic uniformity underlies…

O'Brien SJ, Roelke ME, Marker L, Newman A, Winkler CA, Meltzer D, Colly L, Evermann JF, Bush M, Wildt DE · Science · 1985

This study focused on the poorly sampled lions of West and Central Africa and found them genetically distinct from East and Southern African lions, instead allied with the Asiatic lion. By analyzing m…

Bertola LD, van Hooft WF, Vrieling K, et al. · Journal of Biogeography · 2011

This study sequenced genomes from tigers representing multiple subspecies to reconstruct their demographic history and detect local adaptation. The authors found that tigers share a recent common ance…

Yue-Chen Liu, Shu-Jin Luo, et al. · Current Biology · 2018

This study analyzed genomes across the genus Panthera and found pervasive evidence of ancient gene flow among the big-cat lineages, demonstrating that their evolution was reticulate rather than strict…

Henrique V. Figueiro, Eduardo Eizirik, et al. · Science Advances · 2017

This study sequenced whole genomes from tigers representing the major living populations and found strong genomic support for distinct subspecies despite the tiger's recent origin. The authors detecte…

Liu YC, Sun X, Driscoll C, et al. · Current Biology · 2018

This genomic study sequenced multiple Panthera species and found pervasive evidence that gene flow between lineages, not just simple branching, shaped big cat evolution. The authors detected introgres…

Figueiro HV, Li G, Trindade FJ, et al. · Science Advances · 2017

This study used mitochondrial DNA and microsatellites across the puma's vast range from Canada to Patagonia to reconstruct the species' population history. The authors found surprisingly low genetic d…

Melanie Culver, Warren E. Johnson, Jill Pecon-Slattery, Stephen J. O'Brien · Journal of Heredity · 2000

This study sequenced genomes of Bengal tigers from across India, home to most of the world's wild tigers, to assess genetic diversity, structure, and inbreeding among populations. The authors found th…

Anubhab Khan, Uma Ramakrishnan, et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2021

This study sequenced and analyzed the cheetah genome, providing molecular confirmation of the species' exceptional genetic impoverishment. The authors reported very low genome-wide heterozygosity, ext…

Pavel Dobrynin, Stephen J. O'Brien, et al. · Genome Biology · 2015