🧬 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

The IUCN Cat Specialist Group convened a Cat Classification Task Force to reconcile decades of conflicting felid taxonomy with modern genetic and morphological evidence. The resulting consensus recogn…

Andrew C. Kitchener, Christiane Breitenmoser-Wursten, Eduardo Eizirik, et al. (Cat Classification Task Force) · Cat News Special Issue · 2017

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

Carbone and Gittleman derived a simple, general rule linking carnivore population density to the productivity of the prey base, showing across species that roughly the same amount of prey biomass supp…

Carbone, C. & Gittleman, J.L. · Science · 2002

This study characterized the lentivirus circulating in free-ranging African lions and confirmed it as a distinct feline immunodeficiency virus lineage (FIV-Ple) related to but divergent from the domes…

E. W. Brown, N. Yuhki, C. Packer, S. J. O’Brien · Journal of Virology · 1994

This study used DNA markers to measure relatedness within and between lion coalitions and prides, testing whether cooperation tracks genetic kinship. It confirmed that companion females within a pride…

Packer, C., Gilbert, D. A., Pusey, A. E., O'Brien, S. J. · Nature · 1991

The landmark synthesis that re-anchored modern felid taxonomy. A 16-member IUCN Cat Specialist Group task force reviewed morphological, molecular, biogeographic, and behavioral evidence across all liv…

Kitchener AC, Breitenmoser-Wursten C, Eizirik E, et al. · Cat News Special Issue 11 · 2017

This influential analysis of long-term Serengeti and Ngorongoro data examined how female lions respond to the takeover of their pride by new males, an event that typically triggers infanticide of depe…

Packer C, Pusey AE · The American Naturalist · 1983

Using GPS telemetry and field observation, Elbroch and colleagues documented that pumas, long considered strictly solitary, engage in structured social interactions, including tolerated food sharing a…

L. Mark Elbroch, Michael Levy, Mark Lubell, Howard Quigley, Anthony Caragiulo · Science Advances · 2017

This pioneering study in the Idaho Primitive Area provided the first rigorous picture of mountain lion predation on wild ungulates, based on years of tracking pumas in snow and examining kills. It doc…

Hornocker, M. G. · Wildlife Monographs · 1970

Hornocker combined winter snow-tracking with radio-telemetry to quantify how cougars hunt mule deer and elk in central Idaho. By relocating collared lions and back-tracking to their kills, he estimate…

Maurice G. Hornocker · Wildlife Monographs · 1970

Hornocker's pioneering radio-telemetry study of cougars in central Idaho was among the first to quantify how a solitary felid affects its ungulate prey. By tracking marked lions through winters and re…

Hornocker, M.G. · Wildlife Monographs · 1970

This study applied multilocus DNA fingerprinting to wild Serengeti and Ngorongoro lions to resolve parentage and quantify relatedness within prides and male coalitions. By matching cubs to candidate s…

Gilbert DA, Packer C, Pusey AE, Stephens JC, O'Brien SJ · Journal of Heredity · 1991

This study linked an epizootic of severe notoedric mange in urban bobcats and mountain lions to exposure to anticoagulant rodenticides. By combining disease surveillance, necropsy and toxicology in ra…

S. P. D. Riley, C. Bromley, R. H. Poppenga, et al. · Journal of Wildlife Management · 2007

This study established a striking association between exposure to anticoagulant rodenticides and severe notoedric mange in bobcats and mountain lions across urban southern California. Necropsies and t…

Riley SPD, Bromley C, Poppenga RH, Uzal FA, Whited L, Sauvajot RM · Journal of Wildlife Management · 2007

Norouzzadeh and colleagues demonstrated that deep convolutional neural networks could automate the labor-intensive task of processing millions of camera-trap images. Training on the labeled Snapshot S…

Mohammad Sadegh Norouzzadeh, Anh Nguyen, Margaret Kosmala, Alexandra Swanson, Meredith S. Palmer, Craig Packer, Jeff Clune · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2018

This influential comparative study estimated bite forces across a broad range of living and extinct mammalian carnivores using dry-skull dissection methods and lever modelling, then scaled the results…

Wroe, S.; McHenry, C.; Thomason, J. · Proceedings of the Royal Society B · 2005

This study estimated body mass across the species of Smilodon using regression relationships between skeletal dimensions and body weight in living felids. The analysis confirmed that the South America…

Per Christiansen, John M. Harris · Journal of Morphology · 2005

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

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 study resolved a long-standing puzzle: why the 1994 Serengeti CDV epidemic was lethal while earlier CDV exposures left lions seropositive but alive. By integrating decades of serology, climate re…

L. Munson, K. A. Terio, R. Kock, et al. · PLoS ONE · 2008

Lionesses in a pride synchronise births and raise cubs in a communal creche, and this study examined how milk is shared. Mothers nursed their own cubs preferentially but tolerated suckling by related…

Anne Pusey, Craig Packer · Behavioral Ecology · 1994

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

Trinkel and Kastberger quantified the contest over carcasses between lions and spotted hyenas in Namibia's Etosha National Park, where prey is comparatively scarce. They recorded how the outcome of co…

Trinkel, M. & Kastberger, G. · African Journal of Ecology · 2005

Using simulated intrusions, this study examined how lionesses behave when their pride must repel rivals. Individuals differed consistently: some females reliably led the advance toward broadcast roars…

Robert Heinsohn, Craig Packer · Science · 1995

Using playback experiments that simulated intruding roars, this study revealed that female lions vary in how readily they approach a threat, with consistent leaders and laggards within a pride. Some i…

Heinsohn, R., Packer, C. · Science · 1995