🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Inbreeding in small captive populations can reduce fertility, increase juvenile mortality, and cause physical and reproductive abnormalities, collectively termed inbreeding depression. This overview s…

Small or isolated cat populations frequently show the hallmarks of inbreeding depression, including reduced fertility, abnormal sperm, congenital defects, weakened immunity, and elevated juvenile mort…

Lions live in a world structured by sound, and research has probed how they recognize one another and assess threats vocally. This overview reviews evidence that lions distinguish the roars of pride m…

Lion roars carry information not only about presence but potentially about the identity and competitive ability of the caller. This overview surveys research on the acoustic structure of roars, the ba…

This overview synthesises research on how individual big cats develop man-eating behaviour, integrating evidence from Tsavo lions, Sundarbans and Champawat tigers, and Indian leopards. It reviews the…

As in lions, the takeover of a tigress's range by a new male can lead to the killing of her dependent cubs, after which she returns to breeding condition. This overview synthesizes field evidence for…

Infanticide is a central force in lion social evolution, occurring when incoming males kill the cubs of their predecessors to accelerate females' return to breeding condition. This overview surveys re…

When a new coalition of males takes over a pride they commonly kill unweaned cubs, which brings females back into breeding condition sooner. This research overview surveys how lionesses respond by giv…

Felids share landscapes with other carnivores, and pathogens frequently move among species within these guilds, shaping disease dynamics. This overview surveys interspecific transmission among carnivo…

Big cats not only compete for prey but kill one another, and intraguild predation shapes the structure of carnivore communities. This overview synthesizes research on how dominant cats such as lions a…

A survey of the lethal interactions between cats and dogs that share prey and space, a major structuring force in carnivore communities. Lions and hyenas kill wild dogs and cheetahs; pumas and coyotes…

The response to catnip and related iridoids is not unique to domestic cats; various wild felids also react. This overview surveys reports that some big cats, such as lions and others, show interest in…

This overview surveys what stable isotope and dental studies reveal about the diet of Panthera atrox. By analysing carbon and nitrogen values in the bone collagen of American lions alongside contempor…

This overview surveys stable isotope studies of cave lion diet, which use carbon and nitrogen values in bone collagen to identify the prey of Panthera spelaea across Ice Age Eurasia and Beringia. Seve…

This overview examines how stable isotope studies reveal the way coexisting Ice Age predators divided up prey and habitat. By comparing carbon and nitrogen values in the bone collagen of species such…

This overview surveys how stable isotope studies have been used to identify the prey of Smilodon at sites such as Rancho La Brea. By comparing carbon and nitrogen values in sabertooth bone collagen wi…

This overview synthesizes the striking pattern by which a sabertooth body plan evolved repeatedly and independently across unrelated lineages of predatory mammals. True cats (machairodonts), nimravids…

This overview addresses how sabertooths like Smilodon achieved the enormous gape needed to clear their elongated canines and apply them to prey. Estimates suggest the jaws could open to roughly twice…

Cooperation among male lions in coalitions is shaped by how closely the members are related, with kin selection favoring tolerance of shared reproduction among relatives. This overview surveys the rel…

A survey of the pervasive theft of kills within the African large-carnivore guild, where lions, spotted hyenas, leopards, cheetahs and wild dogs constantly contest carcasses. The direction and outcome…

Cheetahs lose a significant share of their kills to larger carnivores, a major cost of their position in the savanna guild. This overview synthesizes research showing that lions, hyenas, and even leop…

An overview of how often cheetahs lose their kills to lions, hyenas and other competitors, and the consequences for cheetah foraging. Because cheetahs are exhausted after high-speed pursuits and canno…

This overview synthesises studies identifying which landscape and management variables predict where big cats kill livestock, a recurring quantitative question across conflict research. It reviews con…

Cheetahs produce relatively large litters compared with other big cats, sometimes bearing four to six cubs, yet suffer extremely high cub mortality in the wild. This overview surveys the reproductive…

The last wild Asiatic lions, confined to the Gir Forest of India, form a small, genetically depleted population whose disease exposure draws particular concern. This overview surveys what is known and…

Leopards are flexible in their timing of activity, becoming more strictly nocturnal where humans and dominant competitors are present. This overview synthesizes camera-trap studies showing that leopar…

Leopards are versatile solitary hunters whose success rests on stealth, ambush, and the ability to secure kills from kleptoparasites. This overview surveys studies of leopard hunting tactics across fo…

This overview synthesises camera-trap and telemetry studies estimating leopard abundance, density, and movement within Sanjay Gandhi National Park, a forested island surrounded by metropolitan Mumbai.…

Sanjay Gandhi National Park is a roughly hundred-square-kilometre forest island embedded within metropolitan Mumbai, hosting one of the highest known leopard densities recorded near a megacity. This o…

This overview examines the possible ecological connection between the cave lion and the cave bear, two emblematic Ice Age mammals whose extinctions both fall in the latest Pleistocene. Isotopic and co…