🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This study tested a broad-spectrum coronavirus 3C-like protease inhibitor in cats with experimentally induced and naturally occurring FIP, showing that the drug could reverse progression of an otherwi…

Kim Y, Liu H, Galasiti Kankanamalage AC, Weerasekara S, Hua DH, Groutas WC, Chang KO, Pedersen NC · PLoS Pathogens · 2016

Fleming and colleagues confronted a fundamental flaw in conventional kernel home-range estimation: it assumes location data are independent, yet modern GPS fixes are strongly autocorrelated in time, c…

Christen H. Fleming, William F. Fagan, Thomas Mueller, Kirk A. Olson, Peter Leimgruber, Justin M. Calabrese · Ecology · 2015

This experiment played recordings of one or three roaring strangers to prides and measured how resident females responded. Lionesses were more cautious when outnumbered and more likely to approach whe…

McComb, K., Packer, C., Pusey, A. E. · Animal Behaviour · 1994

Playback experiments on Serengeti lionesses tested whether females could judge the size of an intruding group from its roars. Researchers broadcast recordings of one versus three unfamiliar females an…

Karen McComb, Craig Packer, Anne Pusey · Animal Behaviour · 1994

Whytock and colleagues confronted a practical worry: machine-learning species classifiers make errors, so can ecological conclusions drawn from automatically labeled images be trusted? Using African f…

Robin C. Whytock, Jedrzej Swiezewski, Joeri A. Zwerts, Tadeusz Bara-Slupski, Aurelie Flore Koumba Pambo, et al. · Methods in Ecology and Evolution · 2021

This study applied genome-wide SNP markers to quantify how thoroughly Scottish wildcats have hybridized with domestic cats, a central question for the survival of the population. The authors developed…

Senn HV, Ghazali M, Kaden J, et al. · Evolutionary Applications · 2019

This richly illustrated scholarly book synthesizes decades of research on sabertooth cats and their relatives, written and illustrated by a leading palaeoartist and researcher. It surveys the diversit…

Mauricio Anton · Indiana University Press · 2013

This study examined how sabertooth carnivores killed large prey by comparing the anatomy and inferred mechanics of dirk- and scimitar-toothed forms across multiple lineages. The authors analysed featu…

Ki Andersson, David Norman, Lars Werdelin · PLoS ONE · 2011

This study used fine-scale GPS and accelerometer data from pumas in the Santa Cruz Mountains to show that cougars respond to human development at multiple spatial scales, avoiding developed areas in w…

Wilmers CC, Wang Y, Nickel B, Houghtaling P, Shakeri Y, Allen ML, Kermish-Wells J, Yovovich V, Williams T · PLoS ONE · 2013

Steenweg and colleagues argued for treating camera traps as a globally coordinated biodiversity sensor network rather than isolated local tools. They reviewed how standardized protocols, shared data i…

Robin Steenweg, Mark Hebblewhite, Roland Kays, Jorge Ahumada, Jason T. Fisher, et al. · Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · 2017

DeVault, Rhodes and Shivik synthesized the neglected ecology of carrion use, arguing that scavenging is far more pervasive and important than traditionally recognized and that most carnivores, includi…

DeVault, T.L., Rhodes, O.E. & Shivik, J.A. · Oikos · 2003

Swaisgood and Shepherdson reviewed how rigorously zoos had studied enrichment and stereotypy, surveying the published literature for methodological quality. They found many anecdotal claims but a grow…

Swaisgood RR, Shepherdson DJ · Zoo Biology · 2005

This pioneering study quantified how projected sea-level rise threatens the tigers of the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest and home to a unique population of Bengal tigers. Using elevat…

Loucks, C., Barber-Meyer, S., Hossain, M.A.A., Barlow, A., Chowdhury, R.M. · Climatic Change · 2010

This edited volume brought together early scientific work on environmental enrichment, consolidating it into a coherent field. Chapters covered the history, theory, design and evaluation of enrichment…

Shepherdson DJ, Mellen JD, Hutchins M (eds) · Smithsonian Institution Press · 1998

This study developed and tested protocols for hormonally inducing ovulation and performing laparoscopic artificial insemination in two nondomestic felids. The authors administered exogenous gonadotrop…

Howard JG, Roth TL, Byers AP, Swanson WF, Wildt DE · Biology of Reproduction · 1997

Wells reviewed how stimulating the senses, through olfactory, auditory, visual and tactile inputs, can enrich captive animals. She summarised evidence that scents such as spices and prey odours, sound…

Wells DL · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · 2009

This study examined the large domestic dog population living around the Serengeti to test whether dogs sustained the canine distemper virus that spilled into lions and other carnivores. Through serosu…

S. Cleaveland, M. G. J. Appel, W. S. K. Chalmers, et al. · Veterinary Microbiology · 2000

This comprehensive study screened thousands of samples from many felid species plus hyenas for feline immunodeficiency virus and sequenced isolates to map viral diversity. The authors confirmed that F…

J. L. Troyer, J. Pecon-Slattery, M. E. Roelke, et al. · Journal of Virology · 2005

Combining field observations with experiments using life-sized dummy lions, researchers tested what information a male's mane signals. Darker manes indicated higher testosterone and better nutrition,…

Peyton West, Craig Packer · Science · 2002

This foundational neuroscience study used kittens to reveal how early visual experience shapes the developing brain. By depriving one eye of normal vision during a critical period of early life and th…

Torsten N. Wiesel, David H. Hubel · Journal of Neurophysiology · 1963

This study mapped the global human footprint, a composite index of human pressure on land, and tracked its change over time, revealing where pressures intensified and where they eased. The human footp…

Venter, O., Sanderson, E.W., Magrach, A., Allan, J.R., Beher, J., Jones, K.R., et al. · Nature Communications · 2016

Drawing on GPS-tracking of hundreds of pet cats across several countries, this study found that owned cats typically stayed close to home with small home ranges, yet concentrated their hunting in thos…

Kays R, Dunn RR, Parsons AW, Mcdonald B, et al · Animal Conservation · 2020

Wearn and Glover-Kapfer evaluated camera traps against other terrestrial mammal survey methods, such as live trapping, sign surveys, and transects, assessing cost-effectiveness, species coverage, and…

Oliver R. Wearn, Paul Glover-Kapfer · Royal Society Open Science · 2019

Swanson and colleagues published the Snapshot Serengeti dataset, one of the first large-scale, openly available, expertly verified camera-trap image collections, comprising millions of images from a d…

Alexandra Swanson, Margaret Kosmala, Chris Lintott, Robert Simpson, Arfon Smith, Craig Packer · Scientific Data · 2015

Foreman-Worsley and Farnworth systematically reviewed the literature on how social and environmental conditions affect the welfare of indoor-housed cats. Surveying studies of housing density, resource…

Rachel Foreman-Worsley, Mark J. Farnworth · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · 2019

This early study documented how takeovers of prides by new male coalitions are followed by the death of dependent cubs, and how females then return to estrus and breed with the incoming males. By trac…

Bertram, B. C. R. · Journal of Zoology · 1975

This early field study examined how the social organization of lion prides governs which individuals breed and how successfully. The author related pride size, the tenure of resident male coalitions,…

Bertram BCR · Journal of Zoology · 1975

Vitale Shreve, Mehrkam and Udell ran a structured preference assessment to learn what most motivates cats, testing pet and shelter cats with stimuli from four categories: human social interaction, foo…

Kristyn R. Vitale Shreve, Lindsay R. Mehrkam, Monique A. R. Udell · Behavioural Processes · 2017

This detailed developmental study described how kittens in litters engage in social play, cataloguing motor patterns such as the belly-up, stand-up, pounce, and chase, and charting how their frequency…

Meredith West · American Zoologist · 1974

Merola and colleagues tested whether cats engage in social referencing, looking to a human for emotional information about an ambiguous situation. Cats and owners were presented with a potentially ala…

Isabella Merola, Marta Lazzaroni, Sarah Marshall-Pescini, Emanuela Prato-Previde · Animal Cognition · 2015