🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Wielebnowski examined whether individual temperament predicts which captive cheetahs breed, scoring cats on behavioural traits and relating them to reproductive history. Cheetahs rated as more tense,…

Wielebnowski NC · Zoo Biology · 1999

Clubb and Mason analysed comparative data across 35 carnivore species to ask why some thrive in zoos while others pace and breed poorly. They found that wide-ranging species with large natural home ra…

Clubb R, Mason G · Nature · 2003

Bond and Lindburg compared feeding captive cheetahs whole carcasses against conventional processed diets, assessing both behaviour and oral health. Carcass feeding prolonged feeding time, increased sp…

Bond JC, Lindburg DG · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · 1990

Building on the prey-preference series, Hayward, O'Brien and Kerley developed regression models that predict the density a reserve can support for each large African predator from the available biomas…

Hayward, M.W., O'Brien, J. & Kerley, G.I.H. · Biological Conservation · 2007

Caro's long-term Serengeti study is the definitive account of cheetah behavioral ecology, with deep treatment of hunting and predation. He quantified hunting success rates, prey selection by Thomson's…

Caro, T.M. · University of Chicago Press · 1994

This book reports a long-term behavioral study of free-ranging cheetahs, with extensive coverage of reproduction and development. The author documented female ranging and mating, the formation of male…

Caro TM · University of Chicago Press · 1994

This long-term field study produced one of the most complete accounts of cheetah behavioural ecology, covering hunting, social organisation, male coalitions, maternal care, and cub mortality. Among it…

Tim Caro · 1994

This long-term study of cheetahs on the Serengeti plains provided the definitive account of cheetah social organization, combining years of observation of known individuals. It documented the species'…

Caro, T. M. · University of Chicago Press · 1994

This review compiled what was known about reproductive hormone patterns across the cat family, drawing heavily on noninvasive fecal and urinary steroid monitoring developed for zoo animals. The author…

Brown JL · Theriogenology · 2006

Durant tested how subordinate cheetahs persist alongside dominant lions and hyenas in the Serengeti, proposing that they exploit competition refuges, places and times where the risk of encountering do…

Durant, S.M. · Journal of Animal Ecology · 1998

Building on earlier evidence of cheetah monomorphism, this study used hypervariable minisatellite and other molecular markers to estimate when the cheetah's genetic diversity collapsed. The analysis p…

Marilyn Menotti-Raymond, Stephen J. O'Brien · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 1993

Donadio and Buskirk tested what predicts the intensity of interactions among carnivores, including both killing and avoidance. Analyzing a broad dataset, they found that intraguild predation and aggre…

Donadio, E. & Buskirk, S.W. · The American Naturalist · 2006

Terio, Marker and Munson compared adrenal gland morphology and function between captive and wild cheetahs to test whether captivity imposes chronic stress. Captive cheetahs showed adrenal changes and…

Terio KA, Marker L, Munson L · Journal of Wildlife Diseases · 2004

Quirke, O'Riordan and Zuur analysed a large dataset of captive cheetahs to identify which husbandry and demographic factors predict stereotypic pacing. Variables such as enclosure features, neighbouri…

Quirke T, O'Riordan RM, Zuur A · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · 2012

A companion to the hindlimb study, this work dissected and quantified the cheetah forelimb musculature, again reporting muscle masses, fascicle lengths, and physiological cross-sectional areas in a co…

Hudson, P.E.; Corr, S.A.; Lee, R.C.; Wilson, A.M. · Journal of Anatomy · 2011

This detailed dissection-based study quantified the muscle architecture of the cheetah hindlimb, recording muscle masses, fascicle lengths, and physiological cross-sectional areas and comparing them w…

Hudson, P.E.; Corr, S.A.; Lee, R.C.; Wilson, A.M. · Journal of Anatomy · 2011

This landmark study revealed that cheetahs possess extraordinarily low genetic variation, so low that skin grafts exchanged between unrelated individuals were not rejected, indicating near-uniformity…

O'Brien SJ, Roelke ME, Marker L, et al. · Science · 1985

This foundational paper reported that the cheetah carries extraordinarily low genetic variation across allozyme and other molecular markers, far below that of typical outbred mammals. The authors docu…

Stephen J. O'Brien, David E. Wildt, David Goldman, Carl R. Merril, Mitchell Bush · Science · 1985

This landmark study documented extreme genetic uniformity in cheetahs, with the species showing almost no variation at many loci and accepting reciprocal skin grafts as if genetically identical. The a…

S. J. O’Brien, M. E. Roelke, L. Marker, et al. · Science · 1985

Building on earlier allozyme work, this study combined skin-graft acceptance experiments, semen analysis, and assays of genetic markers to argue that the cheetah's extreme genetic uniformity underlies…

O'Brien SJ, Roelke ME, Marker L, Newman A, Winkler CA, Meltzer D, Colly L, Evermann JF, Bush M, Wildt DE · Science · 1985

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 sequenced the cheetah genome and documented its extreme genetic uniformity, a legacy of severe historical bottlenecks. The authors found very low genome-wide diversity, including in immune-…

Dobrynin P, Liu S, Tamazian G, et al. · Genome Biology · 2015

This study quantified cub survival in free-ranging Serengeti cheetahs and analyzed how the threat of predation shapes maternal behavior. By following known mothers and litters, the author found that t…

Laurenson MK · Journal of Zoology · 1994

This comparative biomechanics study placed cheetahs and racing greyhounds on a track and recorded spatio-temporal and kinetic characteristics of their galloping gait. Both are elite cursorial sprinter…

Hudson, P.E.; Corr, S.A.; Wilson, A.M. · Journal of Experimental Biology · 2012

Palomares and Caro compiled and analyzed the global record of carnivores killing other carnivores, establishing intraguild predation as a widespread structuring force. They showed that interspecific k…

Palomares, F. & Caro, T.M. · The American Naturalist · 1999

Radloff and Du Toit analyzed the southern African large-carnivore guild to show that a predator's body mass sets both the average and the upper limit of the prey sizes it takes. Larger predators such…

Radloff, F.G.T. & Du Toit, J.T. · Journal of Animal Ecology · 2004

Ogada and colleagues conducted a controlled comparison of husbandry practices on Laikipia ranches in Kenya to identify which measures reduce predation by lions, leopards, hyenas, and cheetahs. By corr…

Maurice O. Ogada, Rosie Woodroffe, Nicholas O. Oguge, Laurence G. Frank · Conservation Biology · 2003

In this follow-up, Durant used experimental playbacks and detailed observation to show that Serengeti cheetahs actively avoid lions and spotted hyenas at fine spatial and temporal scales, moving away…

Durant, S.M. · Behavioral Ecology · 2000

Wilson and colleagues fitted free-ranging cheetahs with custom collars carrying GPS and inertial sensors to capture the biomechanics of hunting in the wild rather than on a track. The data overturned…

Alan M. Wilson, J. C. Lowe, K. Roskilly, P. E. Hudson, K. A. Golabek, J. W. McNutt · Nature · 2013

This landmark study fitted free-ranging cheetahs in Botswana with custom solar-powered GPS-IMU collars logging position, acceleration, and turning at high frequency during real hunts. Rather than conf…

Wilson, A.M.; Lowe, J.C.; Roskilly, K.; Hudson, P.E.; Golabek, K.A.; McNutt, J.W. · Nature · 2013