🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Many cats climb readily, and some are highly arboreal. This overview surveys the biomechanics of climbing: the use of sharp recurved claws for grip, limb and joint mobility for negotiating branches, b…

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…

The margay, a small Neotropical cat, can descend trees head-first, a rare ability among cats enabled by unusually mobile ankle joints that rotate the hindfeet outward to grip behind the animal. This o…

The margay is one of the most arboreal cats, and this overview reviews the remarkable adaptations that allow it to live in the canopy. Most notably, its hind ankles can rotate roughly one hundred eigh…

Dietary studies describe the margay as a hunter of small vertebrates taken both in the trees and on the ground, including small rodents, birds, opossums, lizards, tree frogs, and invertebrates. This o…

The margay is a small, large-eyed cat of Neotropical forests, ranging from Mexico through Central America into the Amazon basin and as far south as northern Argentina. This overview compiles records l…

This overview examines the activity patterns of the margay, which camera-trap and telemetry studies describe as predominantly nocturnal and strongly arboreal. The species hunts and travels at night th…

The margay, a highly arboreal small cat with extraordinary climbing ability, depends on forest canopy and is considered sensitive to fragmentation, yet records occasionally place it near plantations a…

Reproductive data, largely from captivity, indicate that the margay has an unusually low reproductive output even among small cats, typically producing a single kitten per litter after a gestation of…

Many landscapes host several small cats at once, and this overview reviews how they coexist through niche partitioning. Studies of Neotropical and Asian cat assemblages show that sympatric species div…

The ocelot and margay are widespread Neotropical cats whose phylogeography reveals how rainforest history structured small felid populations. This overview surveys studies showing pronounced genetic s…

A widely discussed observation suggests that margays may use vocal mimicry while hunting, and this overview reviews the evidence and its interpretation. Field researchers reported a margay imitating t…

Agroforestry systems such as shade coffee and cacao, along with tree plantations and pasture-forest mosaics, can provide partial habitat for ocelots, margays, oncillas and jaguarundis across Latin Ame…

Most cats share a conserved chromosome number, but the ocelot lineage is distinguished by a reduced karyotype resulting from a chromosomal fusion. This overview explains how Leopardus species carry 36…

The ocelot lineage comprises the small spotted cats of the Americas, nearly all placed in the genus Leopardus, and represents a relatively recent and rapid radiation. This overview surveys the group,…

Small wild cats, servals, ocelots, fishing cats, sand cats, margays and others, are widely held yet receive less welfare research attention than big cats. This overview surveys their husbandry needs:…

This synthesis reviews the conservation standing of the margay, generally regarded as facing elevated risk owing to its dependence on intact forest, low reproductive rate, and naturally low density. I…

This landmark genetic study reconstructed the evolutionary history of the cat family, using molecular data across all living felid species to resolve the major lineages and their divergence times. It…

Johnson WE, Eizirik E, Pecon-Slattery J, Murphy WJ, Antunes A, Teeling E, OBrien SJ · Science · 2006