🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This genomic study sequenced multiple Panthera species and found pervasive evidence that gene flow between lineages, not just simple branching, shaped big cat evolution. The authors detected introgres…

Figueiro HV, Li G, Trindade FJ, et al. · Science Advances · 2017

This landmark study produced the first globally consistent, high-resolution maps of forest loss and gain in the 21st century using satellite imagery, quantifying deforestation at fine scale across the…

Hansen, M.C., Potapov, P.V., Moore, R., Hancher, M., Turubanova, S.A., Tyukavina, A., et al. · Science · 2013

This study extended earlier work on feline melanism by surveying agouti signaling protein and melanocortin-1 receptor variation across wild cat species, including the leopard. The authors characterize…

Alexsandra Schneider, Eduardo Eizirik, et al. · PLoS ONE · 2012

Inskip and Zimmermann produced a comprehensive global review of conflict between people and wild cats, synthesising the geography, drivers, and severity of conflict across all felid species. They iden…

Chloe Inskip, Alexandra Zimmermann · Oryx · 2009

This paper introduced the MaxEnt method, a maximum-entropy approach for modeling species distributions from presence-only data, which became one of the most widely used tools in the field. Because muc…

Phillips, S.J., Anderson, R.P., Schapire, R.E. · Ecological Modelling · 2006

An early molecular study of the big cats that used mitochondrial 12S rRNA and cytochrome b sequences to probe relationships within the Panthera group. This work was among the first to apply DNA sequen…

Janczewski DN, Modi WS, Stephens JC, O'Brien SJ · Molecular Biology and Evolution · 1995

This morphological study reconstructed relationships among the pantherine cats while explicitly incorporating fossil taxa and testing how missing data affect tree inference. Working from cranial and s…

Christiansen P · Cladistics · 2008

As apex predators, big cats can exert top-down control that ripples through ecosystems via trophic cascades. This overview synthesizes evidence that lions, tigers, leopards, pumas, and jaguars influen…

This overview synthesises comparative studies that contrast successful and unsuccessful big-cat coexistence efforts to distil transferable lessons. It reviews analyses spanning lion, snow leopard, tig…

The most realistic forecasts of cat futures combine climate change with land-use change, since for many forest cats habitat conversion is the faster, larger threat. This overview surveys how integrate…

This overview synthesises the theory and practice of compensating farmers for livestock killed by big cats as a tolerance-building tool. It reviews recurring design challenges: verifying claims to pre…

The presence of cats in South America results from the Great American Biotic Interchange, when the Isthmus of Panama connected the Americas and allowed northern mammals to disperse south. This overvie…

GPS collars do not always acquire a position, and crucially, the probability of failure is not random: dense canopy, steep terrain, and an animal resting in a cave or thicket all suppress fixes. This…

This overview synthesises emerging priorities and frontiers in human-big cat conflict and coexistence research. It reviews calls for more rigorous impact evaluation, greater integration of social scie…

This overview synthesises evidence on why deterrents, lights, sirens, scent, and visual scarecrows, often lose effectiveness as predators habituate. It examines the behavioural ecology of neophobia an…

This overview synthesises studies identifying which landscape and management variables predict where big cats kill livestock, a recurring quantitative question across conflict research. It reviews con…

Black, or melanistic, coats appear repeatedly in wild cats, and this overview reviews this phenomenon and its causes. Melanism, seen famously in black leopards and jaguars, results from genetic varian…

Estimating how many big cats occupy an area is a central and challenging task in their ecology and conservation. This overview reviews the main methods, from individual-identification camera-trap capt…

This overview reviews how payments-for-ecosystem-services (PES) frameworks have been adapted to compensate communities for hosting large carnivores, treating predator presence as a service worth rewar…

This overview examines the persistent gap between perceived and actual risk in human-big cat conflict, a theme cutting across lion, tiger, leopard, puma, and jaguar systems. It synthesises research sh…

The grain and extent at which a habitat model is built strongly influence its conclusions, a key consideration for wide-ranging cats. This overview surveys how the choice of spatial resolution, from c…

This overview synthesises the contested evidence on translocating conflict big cats, capturing and releasing them elsewhere, as a management response. It reviews studies, prominently from Indian leopa…

The ability to roar distinguishes the genus Panthera and is tied to specialized anatomy of the larynx and a flexible hyoid apparatus, while smaller cats purr instead. This overview surveys the anatomi…

Black jaguars, often called black panthers, occur naturally within jaguar populations and result from a dominant mutation in the melanocortin-1 receptor gene, distinct from the recessive melanism of t…

The jaguar, the only Panthera species in the Americas, occupies an informative position in big cat phylogeny. This overview explains how molecular data place the jaguar within the genus Panthera, clos…

This overview synthesises research on whether wildlife-tourism revenue increases local tolerance for big cats by offsetting conflict costs. It reviews cases from jaguar tourism in the Pantanal, lion t…

Black panthers are melanistic leopards (or jaguars), and their existence is often misunderstood as indicating a separate species or subspecies. This overview explains the genetics of leopard melanism,…

This influential review synthesized the global status of the largest carnivores, including big cats such as lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars, documenting widespread range contraction and populatio…

Ripple, W.J., Estes, J.A., Beschta, R.L., Wilmers, C.C., Ritchie, E.G., Hebblewhite, M., et al. · Science · 2014

The big cats of the genus Panthera proved historically difficult to resolve because of rapid speciation and conflicting gene trees. This study assembled a large multilocus supermatrix and applied both…

Brian W. Davis, Gang Li, William J. Murphy · Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution · 2010

Relationships among the big cats long resisted resolution because of short internal branches and conflicting markers. This study assembled a large multi-gene dataset and applied both concatenated supe…

Davis BW, Li G, Murphy WJ · Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution · 2010