🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This influential study used feline immunodeficiency virus as a fast-evolving genetic marker to reconstruct the population history of its puma hosts in the American West. Because the virus mutates far…

R. Biek, A. J. Drummond, M. Poss · Science · 2006

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

Terborgh and colleagues exploited a natural experiment created by a Venezuelan hydroelectric reservoir that isolated land-bridge islands lacking large predators such as jaguars and pumas. On predator-…

Terborgh, J., Lopez, L., Nunez, P. et al. · Science · 2001

This camera-trap study examined how a community of carnivores, including bobcats and pumas, was distributed across an urbanisation gradient in southern California, relating species occurrence and rich…

Ordenana MA, Crooks KR, Boydston EE, Fisher RN, et al · Journal of Mammalogy · 2010

Anderson and Lindzey developed and validated a method to estimate cougar kill rates by identifying spatial clusters of GPS locations and field-checking them for carcasses, then modeling which clusters…

Anderson, C.R. & Lindzey, F.G. · Wildlife Society Bulletin · 2003

Kelly and colleagues estimated puma densities at multiple Latin American sites using camera-trap capture-recapture, confronting the challenge that pumas, unlike jaguars, have relatively uniform coats…

Marcella J. Kelly, Andrew J. Noss, Marcelo S. Di Bitetti, Leonardo Maffei, Rosario L. Arispe, et al. · Journal of Mammalogy · 2008

This experimental study demonstrated that the mere sound of human voices induced fear responses cascading from pumas down to mice in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Playback of human speech caused pumas to…

Suraci JP, Clinchy M, Zanette LY, Wilmers CC · Ecology Letters · 2019

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

This camera-trap study in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California examined how mesopredators adjusted their spatial and temporal activity in response to both pumas and human development. The authors fo…

Wang Y, Allen ML, Wilmers CC · Biological Conservation · 2015

Lentiviruses related to domestic-cat FIV circulate widely in wild felid species including lions, pumas, leopards, and others, often at high seroprevalence yet apparently with limited disease in their…

High-resolution GPS tracking combined with accelerometers and other biologgers has transformed the study of how felids behave near people, enabling fine-scale analysis of movement, activity, energetic…

Every GPS collar embodies a compromise: more frequent fixes reveal finer movement detail but drain the battery faster, shortening the tracking period. This overview examines how researchers schedule f…

Sarcocystis parasites cycle between predator definitive hosts and prey intermediate hosts, with felids shedding infective stages after eating cysts in muscle. This overview surveys the role of wild ca…

Serosurveys consistently reveal high Toxoplasma exposure in wild felids, reflecting their role as both definitive hosts and predators of infected prey. This overview synthesizes prevalence patterns ac…

Sylvatic plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, circulates among rodents in the American West, and mountain lions become exposed by preying on infected rodents and lagomorphs. This overview…

This overview surveys how tri-axial acceleration data from collars are translated into behavioral states for cats, enabling activity budgets and the detection of key events like kills. Researchers typ…

A survey of how cats do not take prey at random but select particular age and sex classes, with consequences for prey populations. Felids frequently kill disproportionately young, old or otherwise vul…

Movement models can be turned around to simulate animals, generating virtual trajectories from estimated movement rules to predict population-level patterns. This overview describes agent-based and in…

A survey of the two principal felid hunting strategies, stalk-and-ambush used by most cats and the high-speed pursuit of the cheetah, and their ecological consequences. Ambush predators rely on cover…

A survey of how restoring large cats to systems where they were lost can rekindle anti-predator behavior in prey and reinstate top-down effects. Where prey have lived without predators, they may becom…

Some Toxoplasma infections in southern sea otters involve unusual atypical genotypes, including a so-called Type X strain rarely seen in domestic cats. This overview surveys research suggesting that w…

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…

An overview of how the kills of large felids redistribute energy and nutrients through ecosystems. Carcasses and the cats' partly eaten remains create nutrient hotspots that fertilize soils and vegeta…

Long-term studies that radio-collar wild felids provide rare opportunities to determine causes of death, including disease, with precision. This overview surveys how telemetry-based monitoring quantif…

Climate change interacts with urbanisation to reshape the conditions felids face near cities, altering prey availability, water resources, heat exposure, fire regimes and the viability of corridors. T…

Feline immunodeficiency virus causes an AIDS-like syndrome in domestic cats yet has long been assumed benign in its wild hosts. This overview examines the evidence for and against that assumption, com…

From leopards in Mumbai to pumas in Los Angeles, caracals in Cape Town and fishing cats in Colombo, a remarkable diversity of felids inhabits the worlds cities, offering a comparative window on urban…

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…

The cheetah and the extinct American cheetah independently evolved a slender, long-limbed body built for high-speed pursuit, a striking case of convergence given their separate ancestries within the p…

As conservation efforts seek to rewild felids and support natural range expansion, disease becomes a critical consideration. This overview surveys the disease dimensions of rewilding and range recover…