🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

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 overview examines Proailurus, widely regarded as the earliest true cat, known principally from the late Oligocene and early Miocene of Europe, including the famous Quercy fissure fillings of Fran…

This overview examines how body size influenced which carnivores survived the end-Pleistocene extinctions and which, like the great cats, did not. Large predators tend to have smaller populations, low…

The sequencing of cat genomes, beginning with the domestic cat and extending to tiger, lion, snow leopard, cheetah, and others, transformed felid systematics. This overview surveys how whole-genome da…

As tracking datasets have grown to millions of points and multi-sensor streams, machine learning has become increasingly central to interpreting them. This overview surveys the application of supervis…

This overview surveys the stable isotope techniques used to reconstruct the diets of extinct cats. Carbon isotopes in bone and tooth collagen and enamel record whether prey fed on plants using differe…

This overview examines the central role of the Bering land bridge in the history of cats, serving as a recurrent corridor for felid movement between Asia and North America. The survey reviews how lowe…

This overview examines the cat gap, a roughly seven-million-year interval in the Oligocene and early Miocene during which true cats are essentially absent from the North American fossil record, even t…

The perennial tension between lumpers, who favor fewer broad taxa, and splitters, who recognize many fine ones, is sharply visible in cat classification. This overview examines how the debate plays ou…

This overview surveys evidence on where and when the Panthera lineage, the genus that includes lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, and snow leopards, first arose. Molecular phylogenies place the diverge…

This overview traces how VHF radio-telemetry emerged in the late 1950s and 1960s, when biologists such as the Craighead brothers fitted grizzly bears in Yellowstone with radio collars and proved that…

This overview explains the reasoning the Cat Classification Task Force used to justify a major revision rather than incremental edits. It describes the decision rules adopted: recognize taxa only when…

Cat classification is not merely academic; it directly shapes how cats are protected. This overview explains how taxonomy underlies Red List assessments, CITES appendices, and national legislation, al…

This influential study reconstructed the molecular phylogeny of all living cat species and dated their diversification, establishing the framework of eight major felid lineages used ever since. Using…

Johnson WE, Eizirik E, Pecon-Slattery J, et al. · Science · 2006