🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Margulis, Hoyos and Anderson examined the relationship between how active captive cats are and how long visitors watch them. Observing several felid species, they found that visitor interest, measured…

Margulis SW, Hoyos C, Anderson M · Zoo Biology · 2003

This genomic study sequenced multiple Panthera species and found pervasive evidence that gene flow between lineages, not just simple branching, shaped big cat evolution. The authors detected introgres…

Figueiro HV, Li G, Trindade FJ, et al. · Science Advances · 2017

An early molecular study of the big cats that used mitochondrial 12S rRNA and cytochrome b sequences to probe relationships within the Panthera group. This work was among the first to apply DNA sequen…

Janczewski DN, Modi WS, Stephens JC, O'Brien SJ · Molecular Biology and Evolution · 1995

McCarthy, Fuller, and Munkhtsog reported one of the first detailed studies of snow leopard movement, using VHF telemetry to track cats in the mountains of southwestern Mongolia. Despite the constraint…

Thomas M. McCarthy, Todd K. Fuller, Bariushaa Munkhtsog · Biological Conservation · 2005

Gartner, Powell and Weiss applied systematic personality assessment to four felid species, having keepers rate individuals on behavioural traits and then analysing the underlying structure. They ident…

Gartner MC, Powell DM, Weiss A · Journal of Comparative Psychology · 2014

This morphological study reconstructed relationships among the pantherine cats while explicitly incorporating fossil taxa and testing how missing data affect tree inference. Working from cranial and s…

Christiansen P · Cladistics · 2008

This study conducted the first range-wide genetic analysis of the snow leopard and proposed dividing the species into three subspecies. Using noninvasive samples collected across the snow leopard's mo…

Janecka JE, Zhang Y, Li D, et al. · Journal of Heredity · 2017

Before GPS collars became affordable, the Argos satellite system offered the first way to track animals that roamed beyond the reach of ground crews. Argos estimated a transmitter's position from the…

Following the Bronx Zoo tigers, SARS-CoV-2 infections were confirmed in big cats at zoos and sanctuaries across multiple countries, including additional tigers, lions, snow leopards, pumas and others.…

Estimating snow leopard home ranges is especially vulnerable to the autocorrelation problem because dense GPS fixes from a slow-ranging mountain cat are highly correlated, and this overview examines t…

Behaviour offers a rich, non-invasive window into felid welfare, but interpreting it requires care. This overview surveys the behavioural signs used to assess captive cats: stereotypic pacing and rout…

Snow leopards, adapted to cold, rugged, high-altitude terrain, present particular welfare considerations in captivity. This overview surveys their husbandry: the importance of elevated rocky structure…

Snow leopards occupy cold, high-elevation habitat that climate change threatens to shrink and fragment, and this overview examines how movement and distribution research informs projections of their f…

As climate change shifts the distribution of suitable habitat, corridors that connect populations today may not align with where animals need to move tomorrow, and this overview examines how researche…

Snow leopards inhabit remote high mountains, yet they are not isolated from disease, facing exposure to pathogens shared with domestic animals and prey across their range. This overview surveys what i…

To stretch limited battery life, modern collars use duty cycling, turning sensors and the GPS receiver on only at chosen times, and adaptive schedules that intensify sampling when it matters most. Thi…

Comparative and within-institution studies have probed which enclosure features predict pacing in captive cats. This overview surveys evidence relating stereotypic pacing to enclosure size, complexity…

This overview examines efforts to apply accelerometer and GPS-cluster methods to snow leopards, whose remote, high-altitude haunts make direct observation nearly impossible. By combining collars with…

No single indicator captures welfare reliably, so the field has moved toward integrated assessment combining multiple lines of evidence. This overview surveys how comprehensive welfare evaluation for…

This overview synthesizes how GPS cluster methods have been applied across felid species to estimate how often cats kill and what they eat, turning location data into quantitative diet and predation-r…

Where cats and livestock overlap, the distribution of herds and the layout of settlements shape predator movement, and this overview synthesizes telemetry insights relevant to conflict. GPS data show…

Local convex hull methods, known as LoCoH, build a home range from many small convex polygons constructed around each location and its nearest neighbors, then merge them into a utilization distributio…

Whether the snow leopard should be split into subspecies is an active debate. This overview contrasts the traditional treatment of the snow leopard as a monotypic species with a 2017 proposal recogniz…

Modern exhibit design aims to provide not just naturalistic appearance for visitors but genuine behavioural opportunity for animals. This overview surveys principles of felid exhibit design: complex,…

Net squared displacement, the squared straight-line distance from a starting point over time, provides a simple but powerful way to classify whole-trajectory movement strategies. This overview describ…

Whether snow leopards maintain stable home ranges or wander nomadically is a genuine and consequential question, and this overview examines the evidence telemetry has brought to bear. Resident adults…

Stereotypic pacing is the signature abnormal behaviour of captive carnivores, and a leading explanation links it to thwarted ranging and unfulfilled appetitive, pre-consummatory motivation, the search…

Individual cats differ consistently in boldness, fearfulness, aggressiveness and sociability, and these stable traits affect welfare, breeding success and how animals respond to husbandry. This overvi…

Before estimating a home range, one must verify that the animal actually has one, that its movement is range-resident rather than dispersing, migrating, or nomadic. This overview describes diagnostic…

Despite decades of study, major gaps remain in understanding disease in wild felids, particularly for less-studied species and regions. This overview surveys the priorities and unanswered questions in…