🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Excavating the Neolithic village of Shillourokambos on Cyprus, Vigne and colleagues uncovered a complete cat skeleton deliberately buried within centimetres of a human grave, the two interred together…

Jean-Denis Vigne, Jean Guilaine, Karyne Debue, Laurent Haye, Patrice Gerard · Science · 2004

Faced with rampant hybridization between Scottish wildcats and domestic cats, this study developed a pelage-based scoring system to distinguish genuine wildcats from hybrids and feral domestic cats. T…

Kitchener AC, Yamaguchi N, Ward JM, Macdonald DW · Animal Conservation · 2005

This comprehensive revision, produced by the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group, synthesized morphological, molecular, and biogeographic evidence to propose a consistent, e…

Kitchener AC, Breitenmoser-Wursten C, Eizirik E, Gentry A, Werdelin L, Wilting A, et al. · Cat News Special Issue · 2017

Faure and Kitchener synthesized archaeological, iconographic and historical evidence to trace how people and small cats came together across the ancient world. They argued that domestication was a gra…

Eva-Maria Geigl Faure, Andrew C. Kitchener · Anthrozoos · 2009

This study reported the successful cloning of an endangered small felid by somatic cell nuclear transfer using domestic cats as oocyte donors and surrogate mothers. Researchers transferred nuclei from…

Gomez MC, Pope CE, Giraldo A, Lyons LA, Harris RF, King AL, Cole A, Godke RA, Dresser BL · Cloning and Stem Cells · 2004

This study produced an improved domestic cat genome assembly and compared it with wildcats and other mammals to find molecular footprints of domestication. The authors identified selection signals in…

Michael J. Montague, Wesley C. Warren, Stephen J. O'Brien, et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2014

Montague and colleagues produced a high-quality domestic cat reference genome and compared it with wild felids and other mammals to find the genetic footprint of domestication. They detected selection…

Michael J. Montague, Gang Li, Barbara Gandolfi, et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2014

This morphological study measured wildcat skulls to test whether the European, African, and Asian wildcat groups differ consistently in cranial form. Analyzing museum specimens, the authors found that…

Yamaguchi N, Driscoll CA, Kitchener AC, et al. · Biological Journal of the Linnean Society · 2004

This review synthesized progress in applying in vitro fertilization, embryo culture, embryo transfer, and cryopreservation to nondomestic cats, using the domestic cat as a research model. The author s…

Pope CE · Theriogenology · 2000

This genomic study examined the enigmatic Chinese mountain cat of the Tibetan Plateau and clarified its relationship to other wildcats and to domestic cats in China. Using genome-wide data, the author…

Yu H, Xing YT, Meng H, et al. · Science Advances · 2021

This comparative study applied trait ratings to multiple felid species, including domestic cats, African lions, snow leopards, clouded leopards, and Scottish wildcats, to ask whether personality dimen…

Marieke Gartner, David Powell, Alexander Weiss · Journal of Comparative Psychology · 2014

The European wildcat occupies forest and agricultural mosaics across Europe, where proximity to settlements brings hybridisation with domestic cats, road mortality and habitat fragmentation. This over…

The African or Near Eastern wildcat, Felis silvestris lybica, is the direct ancestor of all domestic cats. This overview surveys its ecology, distribution and behaviour, describing a solitary, territo…

A key outcome of recent wildcat taxonomy is the treatment of the European wildcat (Felis silvestris) and the African or Near Eastern wildcat (Felis lybica) as separate species rather than subspecies o…

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…

The story of how cats joined human society blends zooarchaeology with molecular genetics. This overview surveys evidence from early Neolithic Cyprus, where a cat was buried beside a human roughly nine…

This overview examines how the extinction risk of small wildcats is assessed and the difficulties involved. Status assessments draw on distribution, population size and trend, habitat, and threats to…

Domestication reshaped cat behavior, reducing fear of humans and increasing tolerance and sociability, and genetics is beginning to reveal the underlying changes. This overview surveys evidence that s…

Comparing the domestic cat with its wild ancestor illuminates how domestication has reshaped behaviour. This overview surveys research contrasting African and European wildcats with domestic cats in t…

Modern cat breeds emerged recently from broadly distributed random-bred populations, and this overview surveys research reconstructing their ancestry and relationships. It examines genetic studies tra…

Camera trapping has transformed the study of small wildcats, and this overview reviews how the method is applied and its limitations. Remote cameras detect cryptic, nocturnal cats without direct obser…

Dogs and cats represent contrasting domestication stories, and comparing them clarifies what domestication means. This overview surveys the differences: dogs descend from wolves through a long, intens…

Genetic tools have become central to small-cat conservation, and this overview reviews their applications. Non-invasive sampling of scats and hair allows researchers to confirm the presence of cryptic…

The domestic cat traces to a desert-adapted wild ancestor, and this overview reviews how that heritage shapes its water physiology today. Descended from the African wildcat of arid regions, domestic c…

An overview of how co-occurring small felids divide prey to coexist, a less-studied counterpart to big-cat guild ecology. Where species such as ocelots, margays, oncillas, jungle cats, leopard cats an…

The European wildcat’s recovery is complicated by disease and hybridization stemming from contact with abundant domestic cats. This overview surveys the disease threats facing wildcats, including feli…

Because the domestic cat and its wild relatives remain fully interfertile, hybridization is a persistent conservation concern, especially for the European wildcat, Felis silvestris silvestris, in plac…

Free-roaming and feral domestic cats, vastly more numerous than their wild relatives, act as a reservoir for pathogens that can spill into endangered felids. This overview surveys the suite of disease…

Using domestic cats to gestate embryos of related wild species offers a practical surrogate system for conservation reproductive technology. This overview surveys the use of domestic cat recipients to…

Where domestic cats overlap with wild felids, interbreeding can erode the genetic distinctiveness of wild species, a documented threat to European wildcats and a concern for other small cats near sett…