Definitions follow the usage of the sources listed on our sources page. Where scientists disagree about a term, the entry says so. For how these ideas are applied to specific measurements, see the field guide to traits; for the extinction-risk categories in depth, see conservation.
Body and movement
- Digitigrade
- Walking on the toes with the heel raised off the ground. All cats are digitigrade, which lengthens the stride and helps them move quietly.
- Retractile claws
- Claws that fold back into protective sheaths when not in use, keeping them sharp. The cheetah is the partial exception: its claws only partly retract and act like running spikes.
- Head-body length
- The distance from the nose to the base of the tail, measured along the back. The tail is excluded.
- Shoulder height
- The vertical distance from the ground to the top of the shoulder on a standing animal.
- Sexual dimorphism
- A consistent difference in size or appearance between males and females. In most cats males are larger; the difference is greatest in lions and tigers.
- Melanism
- A genetic darkening of the coat caused by excess dark pigment. Black jaguars and black leopards are melanistic; the spots remain faintly visible in strong light.
- Rosette
- A ring-shaped coat marking, sometimes with a dark centre. Jaguars and leopards both have rosettes; the jaguar's are usually larger and contain a spot.
- Tapetum lucidum
- A reflective layer behind the retina that bounces light back through the eye, improving vision in dim conditions and producing the familiar eyeshine.
Behaviour
- Solitary
- Living and hunting alone outside the breeding season. Most cats are solitary; the lion is the only species with a stable social group.
- Pride
- The social group of the lion, usually built around related females and their young, with a small number of resident males.
- Ambush predator
- A hunter that relies on concealment and a short, fast rush rather than a long chase. Nearly every wild cat hunts this way.
- Territory
- An area one animal or group defends against others of the same sex. Its size reflects how much prey the land supports.
- Home range
- The area an animal uses regularly for feeding, resting and breeding, whether or not it defends it. Ranges can overlap even where territories do not.
- Scent marking
- Communication by spraying urine, rubbing glands against objects or leaving scrapes and droppings. It lets solitary animals avoid one another without meeting.
- Nocturnal
- Active mainly at night.
- Crepuscular
- Active mainly at dawn and dusk.
- Diurnal
- Active mainly during the day.
- Cathemeral
- Active at irregular intervals across day and night, with no strong preference.
- Kleptoparasitism
- Taking food that another animal has caught. Cheetahs and leopards are frequent victims, which is one reason leopards hoist kills into trees.
Habitat and range
- Endemic
- Found naturally in one place and nowhere else. The bay cat is endemic to Borneo.
- Montane
- Belonging to mountain slopes, usually below the treeline.
- Alpine
- Belonging to the high mountain zone above the treeline.
- Taiga
- The northern coniferous forest belt, also called boreal forest, where winters are long and snow cover is deep.
- Steppe
- Open, largely treeless grassland of dry temperate regions.
- Dipterocarp forest
- Tropical forest dominated by tall trees of the family Dipterocarpaceae, common in South-East Asia and heavily logged.
- Mangrove
- A coastal forest of salt-tolerant trees growing in tidal mud, important habitat for the fishing cat.
- Range
- The geographic area where a species currently occurs. This is distinct from its historical range, which is often far larger.
- Habitat fragmentation
- The breaking of continuous habitat into isolated patches by roads, farmland and settlement, which isolates populations and limits movement.
Classification
- Felidae
- The cat family, which includes every species in this library.
- Pantherinae
- The subfamily of the big cats and the clouded leopards, distinguished from other cats by features of the throat bones and the ability of some species to roar.
- Felinae
- The subfamily containing the remaining wild cats, from the puma and cheetah to the smallest spotted cats.
- Genus
- A group of closely related species that share a recent common ancestor. The genus name is the first word of a scientific name.
- Lineage
- A group of species that diverged from a common ancestor at about the same time. We group profiles by lineage as well as genus because modern genetics has reshuffled several older groupings.
- Species
- A group of animals that can interbreed and produce fertile young in the wild. Defining the boundary is sometimes contested, which is why species counts differ between authorities.
- Subspecies
- A geographically distinct population within a species that differs consistently in some features but remains able to interbreed with others.
- Scientific name
- The two-part Latin name of a species, such as Panthera tigris, used worldwide so that researchers avoid confusion between common names.
Conservation
- Red List
- The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the most widely used global inventory of extinction risk. It assigns each assessed species to a category.
- Least Concern
- Assessed and found not to qualify for a threatened category.
- Near Threatened
- Close to qualifying for a threatened category, or likely to qualify in the near future.
- Vulnerable
- Facing a high risk of extinction in the wild.
- Endangered
- Facing a very high risk of extinction in the wild.
- Critically Endangered
- Facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.
- Population trend
- The direction a wild population is moving: increasing, stable, decreasing or unknown. It is recorded separately from the category.
- Poaching
- Illegal killing or capture of wildlife, usually for skins, bones, meat or live trade.
- Human-wildlife conflict
- Harm done between people and wild animals, such as livestock losses and the retaliatory killing that follows.
- Camera trap
- An automatic camera triggered by movement or body heat, the main tool for surveying shy cats without disturbing them.
- Reintroduction
- Releasing animals into part of their former range from which the species had disappeared.
- Data Deficient
- A category used when there is too little information to judge extinction risk. It is not a sign that the species is safe.
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