Felidae ( ) is the family of mammals in the order Carnivora colloquially referred to as cats. A member of this family is also called a felid ( ).

The 41 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 patterns range from nocturnal and crepuscular to diurnal, depending on their preferred prey species.

This concept has been revised following developments in molecular biology and techniques for the analysis of morphological data. Today, the living Felidae are divided into two subfamilies: the Pantherinae and Felinae, with the Acinonychinae subsumed into the latter. Pantherinae includes five Panthera and two Neofelis species, while Felinae includes the other 34 species in 12 genera.

The first cats emerged during the Oligocene about , with the appearance of Proailurus and Pseudaelurus. The latter species complex was ancestral to two main lines of felids: the cats in the extant subfamilies, and the "saber-toothed cats" of the extinct subfamily Machairodontinae, including the famous saber-toothed tiger.

The "false saber-toothed cats", the Barbourofelidae and Nimravidae, are not true cats, but are closely related. Together with the Felidae, Viverridae, Nandiniidae, Eupleridae, hyenas, and mongooses, they constitute the Feliformia.

Characteristics

right|thumb|Domestic cat purring

right|thumb|Domestic cat meowing

thumb|Lion [[roaring]]

alt=Close-up photo of a cat paw with extended claws|thumb|Extended claws of a [[Cat|house cat]]

thumb|Lionesses grooming each other

All members of the cat family have the following characteristics in common:

  • They are digitigrade and have five toes on their forefeet and four on their hind feet. Their curved claws are protractile and attached to the terminal bones of the toe with ligaments and tendons. The claws are guarded by cutaneous sheaths, except in the Acinonyx.
  • The plantar pads of both fore and hind feet form compact three-lobed cushions. and they passively retract them. The dewclaws are expanded but do not protract.
  • They have lithe and flexible bodies with muscular limbs. The canine teeth are large, reaching exceptional size in the extinct Machairodontinae. The lower carnassial is smaller than the upper carnassial and has a crown with two compressed blade-like pointed cusps. The baculum is small or vestigial, and shorter than in the Canidae. Most felids have penile spines that induce ovulation during copulation.
  • They have a vomeronasal organ in the roof of the mouth, allowing them to "taste" the air. The use of this organ is associated with the flehmen response.
  • They cannot detect the sweetness of sugar, as they lack the sweet taste receptor.
  • They share a broadly similar set of vocalizations but with some variation between species. In particular, the pitch of calls varies, with larger species producing deeper sounds; overall, the frequency of felid calls ranges between 50 and 10,000 hertz. The standard sounds made by felids include mewing, chuffing, spitting, hissing, snarling and growling. Mewing and chuffing are the main contact sound, whereas the others signify an aggressive motivation. The ability to roar comes from an elongated and specially adapted larynx and hyoid apparatus. When air passes through the larynx on the way from the lungs, the cartilage walls of the larynx vibrate, producing sound. Only lions, leopards, tigers, and jaguars are truly able to roar, although the loudest mews of snow leopards have a similar, if less structured, sound.

In the great majority of cat species, the tail is between a third and a half of the body length, although with some exceptions, like the Lynx species and margay (Leopardus wiedii). Although the maximum skull length of a lion is slightly greater at , it is generally smaller in head-to-body length than the tiger.

  • The smallest cat species are the rusty-spotted cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus) and the black-footed cat (Felis nigripes). The former is in length and weighs .

Most cat species have a haploid number of 18 or 19. Central and South American cats have a haploid number of 18, possibly due to the combination of two smaller chromosomes into a larger one.

Felidae species have type IIx muscle fibers three times more powerful than the muscle fibers of human athletes.

Evolutionary history

thumb|Feliform evolutionary timeline

The family Felidae is part of the Feliformia, a suborder that diverged probably about into several families. The Felidae and the Asiatic linsangs are considered a sister group, which split about .

The earliest cats probably appeared about . Proailurus is the oldest known cat that occurred after the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event about ; fossil remains were excavated in France and Mongolia's Hsanda Gol Formation.

In the Early Miocene about , Pseudaelurus lived in Africa. Its fossil jaws were also excavated in geological formations of Europe's Vallesian, Asia's Middle Miocene and North America's late Hemingfordian to late Barstovian epochs. Modelling of felid coat pattern transformations revealed that nearly all patterns evolved from small spots.

During the Middle Miocene around 15 million years ago, the extinct subfamily Machairodontinae (colloquially known as "saber-toothed cats") emerged and became widespread across Afro-Eurasia and North America by the Late Miocene. With their large upper canine saber teeth, they were adapted to prey on large-bodied megaherbivores. During the Late Miocene and early Pliocene, machairodontines were the dominant cats and large mammalian predators across Afro-Eurasia and North America, with ancestors of living cats generally being small at this time. with the last common ancestor of living cats estimated to have lived around 16 million years ago. Large sized felines and pantherines only emerged during the Pliocene epoch, including the modern big cat genus Panthera. Felids entered South America as part of the Great American Interchange following the emergence of the Isthmus of Panama during the Pliocene epoch.

Machairodontines began to decline during the Pleistocene, perhaps as a result of environmental change and consequential changes in prey abundance, competition with large living cat lineages such as the pantherins as well as possibly archaic humans. The last species belonging to the genera Smilodon and Homotherium became extinct along with many other large mammals around 12–10,000 years ago as part of the end-Pleistocene extinction event, following human arrival to the Americas at the end of the Late Pleistocene.

Classification

Traditionally, five subfamilies had been distinguished within the Felidae based on phenotypical features: the Pantherinae, the Felinae, the Acinonychinae, Acinonychinae used to only contain the genus Acinonyx but this genus is now within the Felinae subfamily.

The phylogenetic relationships of living felids are shown in the following cladogram:

See also

  • Cat gap
  • Felid hybrid
  • List of felids
  • List of largest cats

References