🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This study documented a devastating outbreak of canine distemper virus that killed a large fraction of the lions in the Serengeti ecosystem, demonstrating that infectious disease can cause sudden mass…

Roelke-Parker ME, Munson L, Packer C, et al. · Nature · 1996

This landmark study documented the catastrophic 1994 canine distemper virus (CDV) outbreak that killed roughly a third of the Serengeti lion population, an estimated 1,000 lions, along with leopards,…

M. Roelke-Parker, L. Munson, C. Packer, et al. · Nature · 1996

Athreya and colleagues analysed leopard scats from a farmland landscape in western Maharashtra to quantify diet where leopards live amid dense human settlement. They found domestic animals, especially…

Vidya Athreya, Morten Odden, John D. C. Linnell, Jagdish Krishnaswamy, K. Ullas Karanth · Oryx · 2016

Vitale, Behnke and Udell adapted the secure base test used with infants and dogs to ask whether cats form attachment bonds with their owners. Cats experienced a brief separation from and reunion with…

Kristyn R. Vitale, Alexandra C. Behnke, Monique A. R. Udell · Current Biology · 2019

Athreya and colleagues camera-trapped a densely populated agricultural landscape in Maharashtra with no protected forest and found surprisingly high densities of leopards and striped hyenas living amo…

Vidya Athreya, Morten Odden, John D. C. Linnell, Jagdish Krishnaswamy, Ullas Karanth · PLOS ONE · 2013

This influential study documented free-ranging leopards living at high density in the densely populated, intensively cultivated countryside of Maharashtra, India, far from any protected forest. Using…

Athreya V, Odden M, Linnell JDC, Krishnaswamy J, Karanth U · PLoS ONE · 2013

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

This study tested whether cats modify their behaviour according to their owner's displayed emotion, comparing happy and angry expressions. Cats showed behaviours consistent with detecting the emotiona…

Moriah Galvan, Jennifer Vonk · Animal Cognition · 2016

Galvan and Vonk investigated whether domestic cats are sensitive to their owners' emotional expressions, a capacity well documented in dogs. Cats were exposed to their owner displaying either a happy…

Moriah Galvan, Jennifer Vonk · Animal Cognition · 2016

Adapting the Strange Situation Test used with infants and dogs, researchers observed how cats behaved when their owner left and returned. Cats displayed distinct attachment styles: secure individuals…

Kristyn Vitale, Alexandra Behnke, Monique Udell · Current Biology · 2019

This study produced an improved domestic cat genome assembly and compared it with wildcats and other mammals to find molecular footprints of domestication. The authors identified selection signals in…

Michael J. Montague, Wesley C. Warren, Stephen J. O'Brien, et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2014

Montague and colleagues produced a high-quality domestic cat reference genome and compared it with wild felids and other mammals to find the genetic footprint of domestication. They detected selection…

Michael J. Montague, Gang Li, Barbara Gandolfi, et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2014

Researchers tested whether cats, like dogs, can use a human pointing gesture to locate hidden food. Cats successfully chose the indicated container above chance, showing they can read this human commu…

Adam Miklosi and colleagues · Journal of Comparative Psychology · 2005

Building on emotion research, this study asked whether cats integrate visual and auditory emotional information from both humans and other cats. Cats were presented with facial expressions and vocalis…

Serenella d'Ingeo, Angelo Quaranta and colleagues · Animals · 2020

Potter and Mills applied a modified Ainsworth Strange Situation Test to pet cats to test whether they treat owners as an attachment figure providing security. Measuring behaviours during separations a…

Alice Potter, Daniel S. Mills · PLoS ONE · 2015

At the 5,300-year-old farming village of Quanhucun in central China, Hu and colleagues combined zooarchaeology with stable isotope analysis of cat, rodent, human and dog bones to reconstruct an early…

Yaowu Hu, Songmei Hu, Weilin Wang, et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2014

This study identified the molecular cause of the dominant white and white-spotting coat patterns in domestic cats, mapping both to the KIT gene that governs the migration of pigment-cell precursors du…

Victor A. David, Marilyn Menotti-Raymond, et al. · G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics · 2014

This paper reported the first draft genome of the domestic cat, sequenced at modest coverage from an Abyssinian cat named Cinnamon. Despite the light sequencing, the authors leveraged comparative mapp…

Joan U. Pontius, Stephen J. O'Brien, et al. · Genome Research · 2007

Doherty and colleagues assessed the contribution of invasive predators, prominently including feral cats, to global vertebrate extinctions and declines. Analyzing threatened and extinct species worldw…

Tim S. Doherty, Alistair S. Glen, Dale G. Nimmo, Euan G. Ritchie, Chris R. Dickman · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2016

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

This study quantified an unexpected ecosystem service delivered by leopards inhabiting Sanjay Gandhi National Park inside greater Mumbai. By modelling leopard diet, in which feral and stray dogs form…

Braczkowski AR, OBryan CJ, Stringer MJ, Watson JEM, Possingham HP, Beyer HL · Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · 2018

Braczkowski and colleagues modelled the ecological and public-health role of leopards inhabiting Sanjay Gandhi National Park within Mumbai, where the cats prey heavily on free-ranging dogs in surround…

Alexander R. Braczkowski, et al. · Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · 2018

Creel and Creel demonstrated that African wild dog populations are limited not by prey scarcity but by competition with lions and spotted hyenas, which kill dogs and steal their kills. Analyzing demog…

Creel, S. & Creel, N.M. · Conservation Biology · 1996

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

This early comparative study assessed how cats and dogs solve visible and invisible displacement tasks, the benchmarks Piaget used to chart object permanence in human infants. Both species succeeded a…

Estrella Triana, Robert Pasnak · Animal Learning and Behavior · 1981

Marker, Dickman, and Macdonald evaluated the Cheetah Conservation Fund's program placing Anatolian shepherd and Kangal guarding dogs with Namibian farmers to reduce cheetah and other predator losses.…

Laurie L. Marker, Amy J. Dickman, David W. Macdonald · Rangeland Ecology & Management · 2005

Owen-Smith and Mills assembled a detailed predation web for Kruger National Park, quantifying which predators kill which prey and in what proportions across the size spectrum. They mapped how lion, le…

Owen-Smith, N. & Mills, M.G.L. · Journal of Animal Ecology · 2008

This synthesis pulled together the individual prey-preference analyses for lion, leopard, cheetah, spotted hyena and wild dog to quantify dietary overlap across the African large-carnivore guild. By c…

Hayward, M.W. & Kerley, G.I.H. · South African Journal of Wildlife Research · 2008

This installment of the Hayward series quantified prey selection by African wild dogs, a key competitor of cheetahs and a frequent victim of intraguild predation by lions and hyenas. Using kill record…

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

This landmark genetic study explained the long-noted fact that cats show little interest in sweet foods. The researchers found that cats carry a defective, non-functional version of Tas1r2, one of the…

Xia Li, Weihua Li, Hong Wang, et al. · PLoS Genetics · 2005