🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

The Sundarbans straddle India and Bangladesh, so safeguarding its tigers against climate change requires coordinated cross-border action. This overview surveys how the two nations monitor and manage t…

Many large carnivore landscapes span international borders, prompting the creation of transboundary protected areas, sometimes called peace parks, that link reserves across countries into larger conse…

Snow leopard range spans twelve countries, so climate-resilient conservation requires cooperation across contested international borders. This overview reviews how initiatives like the Global Snow Leo…

Snow leopards routinely move across international borders, and this overview examines the practical and political challenges of tracking a cat whose range spans roughly a dozen countries with varying…

Transfer learning, adapting models pretrained on large image collections to new camera-trap tasks, is central to making machine learning practical when a project has limited labeled data. This overvie…

Moving cats between institutions for breeding, rescue or management is a recognised acute stressor with welfare implications. This overview surveys the science of felid transport and transfer: the str…

Animals may change their behavior toward cameras after first encountering them, becoming wary and avoiding the device (trap-shy) or, where lures are used, returning more often (trap-happy), and either…

Trap-neuter-return, in which free-ranging cats are sterilised and returned to colonies, is among the most contentious topics at the intersection of animal welfare and conservation. This overview synth…

University campuses, with defined boundaries and organized volunteers, have hosted some of the best-documented trap-neuter-return programs, and this overview surveys what they reveal. It examines case…

Free-roaming cats face elevated risks of injury, infection and death, a central consideration in the indoor-outdoor debate. This overview surveys evidence on the hazards outdoor cats encounter, includ…

Curative antiviral treatment of FIP typically requires an extended course, commonly around twelve weeks, followed by an observation period to confirm sustained remission. Cats that stop too early or r…

Leopards famously haul their kills into trees, a behavior with clear ecological logic. This overview synthesizes research showing that caching prey in trees protects it from kleptoparasitism by lions,…

A survey of the leopard's distinctive habit of hauling kills, sometimes heavier than itself, into trees, and the ecological drivers behind it. Tree caching is most pronounced where lions and spotted h…

Whisker signals travel to the brain through the trigeminal nerve, and the cat has served as a model for studying this tactile pathway. This overview surveys how densely the whisker follicles are inner…

An overview of how large cats can structure ecosystems from the top down, with effects rippling through herbivores to vegetation and beyond. By killing and frightening herbivores, apex felids such as…

When anthropogenic food subsidises predators, the effects ripple through food webs, altering predation pressure on native prey and interactions among carnivores. This overview synthesises research on…

Trophy hunting of lions is among the most contentious topics in carnivore conservation, and this overview surveys the science behind the debate. Research has examined how hunting older males can be su…

The most common histopathologic finding in feline CKD is chronic tubulointerstitial nephritis with fibrosis, a pattern of scarring and inflammation that progressively replaces functional kidney tissue…

Every scientific cat name is anchored to a type specimen and governed by the rules of zoological nomenclature, which determine priority and validity. This overview explains how type skins and skulls i…

Researchers have proposed classifications of human-cat relationships based on how owners perceive and interact with their cats and how cats respond. This overview surveys survey-based and observationa…

Ultrasonography is a noninvasive imaging tool used to detect pregnancy, estimate fetal age, count and monitor fetuses, and assess viability in cats. This overview surveys how ultrasound is applied acr…

Microscopy has revealed how the feline tapetum is built from highly ordered cells packed with reflective material, arranged in layers behind the retina between the photoreceptors and the choroid. This…

While cats cannot taste sweetness, they are highly responsive to the savory, umami-like tastes associated with amino acids and nucleotides found in meat. This overview surveys feline umami taste, medi…

Few felid groups have generated as much naming confusion as the small spotted tiger cats of South America, variously called oncilla, tigrina, or tiger cat. This overview traces the tangled taxonomy, f…

Long-term GPS-collar research on caracals around Cape Town has made this population one of the best-studied urban small-cat systems. This overview compiles findings on how caracals navigate a peninsul…

This overview examines research on pumas persisting in and around the urbanised landscapes of southern California, epitomised by P-22, the mountain lion that lived for years in Los Angeles's Griffith…

The draining, filling and pollution of wetlands for urban development is the foremost threat to fishing cats across their range, nowhere more starkly than in rapidly growing South Asian cities. This o…

Recovering sperm by urethral catheterization after pharmacological stimulation offers an alternative to electroejaculation for collecting felid semen. This overview surveys the use of this technique i…

Spraying urine against vertical surfaces is a distinct marking behaviour, separate from elimination, used by cats of both sexes to deposit long-lasting chemical signals. This overview surveys research…

Non-invasive cortisol metabolite monitoring lets keepers test whether husbandry changes actually reduce physiological stress, moving welfare management from intuition to evidence. This overview survey…