🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

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…

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…

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…

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…

The Sunda islands once held three tiger populations, of which only the Sumatran survives; the Bali and Javan tigers are extinct. This overview examines how these island forms figure in tiger taxonomy.…

Tigers are solitary and territorial, and their spacing follows a land-tenure system in which residents hold and defend areas against same-sex rivals. This overview synthesizes how female territories a…

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…

Leopards are traded for their skins, bones, claws, and teeth across both Asia and Africa, driven by demand for fashion, status, traditional medicine, and ceremonial use. This overview surveys research…

Growing demand for lion bones, partly as a substitute for tiger parts in traditional medicine markets, has raised concern about new pressures on wild lions. This overview surveys research and policy a…

South Africa's legal export of lion skeletons, drawn largely from its captive lion industry, created a regulated trade in lion bones destined for Asian markets, and with it a controversial conservatio…

The perennial tension between lumpers, who favor fewer broad taxa, and splitters, who recognize many fine ones, is sharply visible in cat classification. This overview examines how the debate plays ou…

The Malayan tiger of the southern Malay Peninsula was formally separated from the Indochinese tiger in the early 2000s based on molecular evidence of genetic distinctiveness. This overview describes h…

This overview surveys evidence on where and when the Panthera lineage, the genus that includes lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, and snow leopards, first arose. Molecular phylogenies place the diverge…

The snow leopard's relationships within the big cats were long uncertain, with some classifications isolating it in its own genus, Uncia. This overview explains how molecular phylogenetics resolved it…

Clouded leopards occupy a pivotal position as the sister group to the other big cats within the subfamily Pantherinae. This overview explains how molecular phylogenies consistently place the genus Neo…

The roar of a lion or tiger is among the loudest sounds a land mammal makes, and biomechanical research has sought to explain how such low, powerful sound is generated. This overview surveys findings…

This overview explains the reasoning the Cat Classification Task Force used to justify a major revision rather than incremental edits. It describes the decision rules adopted: recognize taxa only when…

The snow leopard belongs to the roaring lineage yet does not roar, and this overview reviews this exception and what it reveals. Although a member of Panthera, the snow leopard lacks the fully develop…

This overview surveys the evolutionary placement of the snow leopard within the big-cat genus Panthera and its relevance to fossil studies. Once isolated in its own genus, the snow leopard is now firm…

Sequencing the snow leopard genome alongside those of the tiger and lion advanced both big cat phylogenetics and the study of high-altitude adaptation. This overview surveys how the snow leopard genom…

The recognition of the southern tigrina, Leopardus guttulus, as a species distinct from the northern tigrina, Leopardus tigrinus, is a notable recent split among Neotropical cats. This overview review…

Subspecies inflation, the naming of many weakly supported geographic forms, has long plagued large carnivore taxonomy and complicates conservation. This overview explains how cats accumulated dozens o…

The South China tiger, historically regarded as the stem population from which other tigers radiated, is functionally extinct in the wild and survives only in captivity. This overview examines its tax…

Few felid controversies are as prominent as how many subspecies of tiger exist. This overview lays out the competing positions: a conservative two-subspecies scheme (mainland and Sunda) advanced on co…

White tigers are not a separate subspecies but tigers carrying a recessive pigment variant, and nearly all captive white tigers descend from a small number of related founders, so producing them relie…

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…

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…