🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This study recovered ancient DNA from extinct North American cats, including the scimitar-toothed Homotherium and the cheetah-like Miracinonyx, to test their relationships against living felids. The g…

Ross Barnett, Ian Barnes, Matthew J. Phillips, Larry D. Martin, C. Richard Harington, Jennifer A. Leonard, Alan Cooper · Current Biology · 2005

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

This study investigated feline coronavirus infection in cheetahs after a devastating outbreak of feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) struck a captive cheetah facility with unusually high mortality. By…

J. L. Heeney, A. J. Evermann, A. J. McKeirnan, et al. · Journal of Virology · 1990

Part of Hayward's comparative prey-preference series, this study quantified cheetah prey selection across study sites by relating kill records to prey availability. Cheetahs preferentially took medium…

Hayward, M.W., Hofmeyr, M., O'Brien, J. & Kerley, G.I.H. · Journal of Zoology · 2006

This overview surveys Acinonyx pardinensis, a large extinct cheetah that ranged across Eurasia during the Pliocene and Pleistocene. Considerably bigger than the living cheetah, sometimes approaching t…

This overview examines the influential idea that the extraordinary running speed of the American pronghorn evolved as a response to predation by the extinct cheetah-like cat Miracinonyx. The pronghorn…

The extinct American cheetah of the genus Miracinonyx superficially resembled the living cheetah, with adaptations for fast pursuit of swift prey such as the pronghorn. This overview surveys genetic a…

This overview describes Natural Trap Cave in Wyoming, a deep sinkhole that acted as a pitfall for Pleistocene animals and accumulated a rich fossil assemblage including the American lion, the cheetah-…

This overview surveys the disappearance of numerous large cats, including Smilodon, Homotherium, the American lion, the cave lion, and Miracinonyx, as part of the broader late Quaternary megafaunal ex…

This overview examines the evolutionary geography of the cheetah lineage and its New World relatives. Molecular and fossil evidence indicate that the cheetah-puma group has a complex transatlantic his…

This overview surveys the cave and sinkhole deposits that have yielded the best-preserved remains of Miracinonyx, including material from caves in the Grand Canyon region and pitfall sites such as Nat…

This overview examines the evolutionary relationships of Miracinonyx and the now well-supported conclusion that its cheetah-like form arose through convergence rather than common ancestry with the tru…

This overview surveys the postcranial anatomy of Miracinonyx and the adaptations for high-speed running that earned it the cheetah-like label. Especially in Miracinonyx trumani, the limbs are elongate…

This overview examines how the limb proportions of Smilodon distinguish it from pursuit predators and point to an ambush hunting style. Compared with cursorial carnivores built for speed, the sabertoo…

This overview surveys the cranial features of Miracinonyx that parallel those of the living cheetah, particularly modifications associated with high-speed running. Like Acinonyx, the more cursorial Mi…

The Asiatic cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus venaticus, survives only as a tiny relict population in Iran and is one of the most endangered cats on Earth. This overview examines its taxonomic recognition and…

This overview surveys the fossil history of the puma lineage, the New World group that includes the living puma and jaguarundi and is closely tied to the extinct American cheetah-like cat Miracinonyx.…

First described in the early twentieth century from southern Africa, the king cheetah's bold blotches and stripes led some naturalists to propose it as a distinct species, Acinonyx rex. This overview…

One of the most counterintuitive results of felid molecular phylogenetics was that the cheetah, long treated as a unique outlier, belongs to a New World puma lineage alongside the puma and the jaguaru…

This overview surveys the two recognized species of the American cheetah-like cat, Miracinonyx trumani and Miracinonyx inexpectatus. Miracinonyx trumani is the more derived, strongly cursorial form, w…

This influential paper argued that the modern cheetah lineage had deep roots in the New World, drawing attention to the extinct North American cheetah-like cats now placed in the genus Miracinonyx. Ad…

Daniel B. Adams · Science · 1979