Ciekawostka: Proportional to their size, cats have the largest eyes of all mammals

Evidence: 59 • authority: 72

Felidae ( FEE-lə-dee) is the family of mammals in the order Carnivora commonly referred to as cats. A member of this family is also called a felid ( FEE-lid, -⁠ləd). The 41 officially recognized extant Felidae species exhibit the greatest diversity in fur patterns of all terrestrial carnivores. Cats have retractile claws, slender muscular bodies and strong flexible forelimbs. Their teeth and facial muscles allow for a powerful bite. They are all obligate carnivores, and most are solitary predators ambushing or stalking their prey. Some wild cat species are adapted to forest and savanna habitats, some to arid environments, and a few also to wetlands and mountainous terrain. Their activity pa…

Evidence: 59 • authority: 88

Body Size and Bite Force of Stray and Feral Cats—Are Bigger or Older Cats Taking the Largest or More Difficult-to-Handle Prey?. As carnivorans rely heavily on their head and jaws for prey capture and handling, skull morphology and bite force can therefore reflect their ability to take larger or more difficult-to-handle prey. For 568 feral and stray cats (Felis catus), we recorded their demographics (sex and age), source location (feral or stray) and morphological measures (body mass, body condition); we estimated potential bite force from skull measurements for n = 268 of these cats, and quantified diet composition from stomach contents for n = 358. We compared skull measurements to estimat…

Evidence: 49 • authority: 92

Bella and Charlie Are Not the Problem-It's Us: The Real Causes of Wildlife Rescue in NSW.. Public discussion in Australia often presents pet cats as a major cause of wildlife decline, and cat management is frequently promoted as a major conservation response. However, this focus may draw attention away from other common and preventable recorded causes of threatened species rescue. Using the NSW Wildlife Rehabilitation Data Dashboard, we present the first statewide analysis of NSW wildlife rehabilitation records to specifically examine threatened species, rather than pooling threatened and non-threatened wildlife together. This dataset represented 52,475 individuals and 158 threatened specie…

Evidence: 49 • authority: 92

Glaucoma in a Siberian Tiger (<i>Panthera tigris altaica</i>) Maintained Under Human Care: A Case Report.. Primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) is rarely recognized in large felids, yet it may cause severe vision loss and chronic pain. This case report presents the ophthalmological evaluation of a four-year-old Siberian tiger ( Panthera tigris altaica ) maintained under human care that exhibited signs of visual impairment and altered sensorium. Under neuroleptic analgesia, clinical findings included bilateral convergent strabismus, persistent mydriasis, pathologically elevated intraocular pressure (48-52 mmHg), extensive map-like retinopathy, and focal retinal degeneration, suppor…

Evidence: 49 • authority: 80

DISPERSAL DISTANCE OF MAMMALS IS PROPORTIONAL TO HOME RANGE SIZE

Evidence: 49 • authority: 72

Smilodon is a genus of extinct felids. It is one of the best-known saber-toothed predators and prehistoric mammals. Although commonly known as the saber-toothed tiger, it was not closely related to the tiger or other modern cats, belonging to the extinct subfamily Machairodontinae, with an estimated date of divergence from the ancestor of living cats around 20 million years ago. Smilodon was one of the last surviving machairodonts alongside Homotherium. Smilodon lived in the Americas during the Pleistocene to early Holocene epoch (2.5 mya – at latest 8,200 years ago). The genus was named in 1842 based on fossils from Brazil; the generic name means 'scalpel' or 'two-edged knife' combined wit…

Evidence: — • authority: 35