🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sinclair, Mduma and Brashares tested why some Serengeti ungulate species are regulated by predation while others are limited by food, using long-term data across the migratory and resident herbivore c…

Sinclair, A.R.E., Mduma, S. & Brashares, J.S. · Nature · 2003

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

Part of Hayward's comparative prey-preference series, this study quantified cheetah prey selection across study sites by relating kill records to prey availability. Cheetahs preferentially took medium…

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

Though not a felid, the spotted hyena is the dominant competitor and kleptoparasite of African big cats, so its prey preferences are central to felid dynamics. Hayward compiled kill and diet records a…

Hayward, M.W. · Journal of Zoology · 2006

African carnivores, including lions, leopards and cheetahs, host a rich diversity of blood-borne parasites that molecular surveys continue to uncover. This overview surveys the diversity of hemoparasi…

Captive cats fed soft, processed diets commonly develop dental disease such as gingivitis, calculus and tooth fractures, whereas chewing on bone, hide and connective tissue provides natural abrasion a…

An overview of the quantitative tools used to predict how many large predators a reserve can sustain from its prey base, building on the prey-preference and prey-biomass approaches. These models estim…

Cheetah cubs suffer extremely high mortality in the wild, and understanding its causes has been central to assessing the species' resilience. This overview surveys research, much of it from long-term…

Cheetah cubs suffer extremely high mortality, much of it inflicted by lions and spotted hyenas. This overview synthesizes research documenting that on the open plains the majority of cheetah cubs die…

A survey of the heavy toll that lions and spotted hyenas take on cheetah cubs, a key demographic constraint on cheetah populations. Studies in the Serengeti and elsewhere have recorded that a large fr…

The cheetah's celebrated speed is the centerpiece of a hunting strategy built on daytime pursuit of fleet prey. This overview synthesizes research on how cheetahs stalk to within range before launchin…

Cheetahs specialize on small to medium antelope, with gazelles forming the dietary core across much of their range. This overview synthesizes kill and scat studies showing that cheetahs favor prey the…

Because cheetahs occur at naturally low densities and avoid areas with high lion and hyena numbers, most cheetahs live outside formal protected areas on farmland and communal rangelands. This overview…

Much of the world's remaining cheetah population lives outside protected areas on farmland, particularly in Namibia, where the ecology differs from the famous plains populations. This overview synthes…

Cooperation is rare among felids, concentrated in the social lion and in cheetah and feral-cat male coalitions, making the family a useful contrast for theories of cooperation. This overview surveys r…