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Felid form and function
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... Claws are present on the limbs of cheetahs with the nails always extended [35]. There are four toes touching the ground, out of which middle two toes are the most weight bearing [36]. ...
... Different position of cheetah during fast motion(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8vejjVgIHg).The cheetah tail is around half the length of the rest of the structure[35], (figure 1). Its tail is unusually long in comparison to the rest of the animal, and it serves as a rudder. ...
The primary emphasis of this article is on cheetahs as fast-moving terrestrial animals whose biomechanics are investigated. An investigation into the biomechanics of this animal provides light on its specialized adaptations that enable to attain extraordinary velocities, thereby shedding light on its evolutionary past and interspecies interactions. Cheetahs have undergone significant physiological, anatomical, and behavioral modifications to accommodate its exceptional speed. The research thoroughly examines the adaptations of the cheetah, encompassing its musculature, talons, and limb structure. Additionally, the respiratory and cardiovascular adaptations that cheetahs possess to facilitate sprinting are discussed in the article. This article also discusses how robot designers and athletes can utilize the strategies used by cheetahs to achieve extremely high speeds through adaptation.
... Future research should consider this variable to establish security distances around wildcats that reduce human impact on wildcat behaviour. Additionally, we must acknowledge that wildcats may detect threats earlier than we do due to their higher sensitive capacities (Kitchener, Van Valkenburgh, Yamaguchi, Macdonald, & Loveridge, 2010) which may affect their behaviour in larger time windows than we perceive. However, our limited detection rate of threats successfully detected substantial changes in wildcat behaviour. ...
... Traffic generally has considerable levels of associated noise (Barber, Crooks, & Fristrup, 2010). Like many felids, wildcats relay on acoustic cues to detect and capture subterranean prey (Kitchener et al., 2010). Thus, traffic and the associated noise may reduce hunting performance in wildcats due to noise masking or disturbance during hunting events. ...
Human activities and infrastructures can disturb wildlife and alter their behaviour by triggering anti-predator responses such as changes in time allocation to different behaviours. For instance, disturbance sources like traffic can cause significant variation in allocation of time to vigilance and foraging behaviours , which can be used as sensitive measures of the effects of human disturbance on animals. Such changes may ultimately result in physiological and ecological costs for the species. We used a unique opportunity to obtain direct behavioural observations of European wildcats, Felis silvestris, in the Can-tabrian Mountains (northwest Spain) to investigate how different sources of anthropogenic disturbance influence time allocation of wildcats to specific behaviours. We also analysed how traffic affects hunting and vigilance time budgets as well as hunting success. We found that wildcats allocated more time to being alert and less time to hunting, feeding and moving in the presence of humans than in undisturbed situations. Wildcats also allocated more time to hunting when traffic levels were high, near roads and further from villages. Similarly, they dedicated more time to vigilance behaviours while feeding in the presence of moving vehicles. Finally, hunting success in the presence of vehicles seemed to decrease more for female wildcats than for males although this effect was not significant. In conclusion, humans and traffic influence the behaviour of wildcats inhabiting pastoral anthropogenic landscapes, although it is difficult to know to what extent such changes may translate into demographic effects.
... Variation in the use of the temporalis muscle affects the height of the coronoid process during development in mammals [69,70]. The temporalis is especially important at wide jaw gape angles when the anterior teeth are used for killing and manipulating large prey in the wild [71,72]. Therefore, diets in captivity, which require lower repeated maximal biting and chewing forces to obtain, manipulate, and consume food, have likely resulted in shorter heights of the coronoid process when compared to those of wild lions and tigers. ...
... The inability to differentiate the captivity status of female Amur tigers by sagittal crest height or length is likely due to them possessing less pronounced sagittal crests for a given body size compared to male Amur tigers, although they are still larger than other continental tigers [16]. This is in part a scaling effect because as skull dimensions increase with body size, the surface area (a square function) of the cranium on which the masseter originates increases more slowly than jaw muscle volume (a cubic function) required for biting more powerfully [71]. It has been hypothesised that high sagittal crests develop in wild Amur tigers to support the larger temporalis muscles required to feed on frozen carcasses during winters in the Russian Far East and China [16]. ...
Zoo animals are crucial for conserving and potentially re-introducing species to the wild, yet it is known that the morphology of captive animals differs from that of wild animals. It is important to know how and why zoo and wild animal morphology differs to better care for captive animals and enhance their survival in reintroductions, and to understand how plasticity may influence morphology, which is supposedly indicative of evolutionary relationships. Using museum collections, we took 56 morphological measurements of skulls and mandibles from 617 captive and wild lions and tigers, reflecting each species’ recent historical range. Linear morphometrics were used to identify differences in size and shape. Skull size does not differ between captive and wild lions and tigers, but skull and mandible shape does. Differences occur in regions associated with biting, indicating that diet has influenced forces acting upon the skull and mandible. The diets of captive big cats used in this study predominantly consisted of whole or partial carcasses, which closely resemble the mechanical properties of wild diets. Thus, we speculate that the additional impacts of killing, manipulating and consuming large prey in the wild have driven differentiation between captive and wild big cats.
... Having a short powerful jaw is typical of felids, which are specialized for solitary hunting. Because the canine teeth are located relatively closer to the jaw joint than they are in canids, a felid can make a strong killing bite (28). In addition, a wider muzzle of a felid enables it to bite larger prey. ...
Certain fox species plunge-dive into snow to catch prey (e.g., rodents), a hunting mechanism called mousing. Red and arctic foxes can dive into snow at speeds ranging between 2 and 4 m/s. Such mousing behavior is facilitated by a slim, narrow facial structure. Here, we investigate how foxes dive into snow efficiently by studying the role of skull morphology on impact forces it experiences. In this study, we reproduce the mousing behavior in the lab using three-dimensional (3D) printed fox skulls dropped into fresh snow to quantify the dynamic force of impact. Impact force into snow is modeled using hydrodynamic added mass during the initial impact phase. This approach is based on two key facts: the added mass effect in granular media at high Reynolds numbers and the characteristics of snow as a granular medium. Our results show that the curvature of the snout plays a critical role in determining the impact force, with an inverse relationship. A sharper skull leads to a lower average impact force, which allows foxes to dive head-first into the snow with minimal tissue damage.
... Felids, which act as apex predators in many ecosystems, are often considered as flagship species due to their charismatic status and their dominant roles in shaping the ecosystem functioning (Gittleman 1989;Terborgh 1992;Gittleman and Gompper 2001;Finke and Denno 2005;Dalerum et al. 2008). However, despite evolving nearly 30 million years ago, felids have largely conserved its phenotypic and functional adaptive characteristics, except for six species: cheetah Acinonyx jubatusa cursorial hunter; fishing cat Prionailurus viverrinus and flat-headed cat Prionailurus planiceps-piscivorous; and the margay Leopardus wiedii, marbled cat Pardofelis marmorata, and clouded leopard Neofelis nebulosa-arboreal hunters (Kitchener et al. 2010). Diet plays an important role in determining several life history traits of predators (da Fonseca and Robinson 1990; Kok and Nel 2004). ...
The threatened fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) is an elusive and medium-sized cat that is adapted to mangroves, swamps, wetlands and riverine habitats. A close look at the literature indicates that fishing cats are piscivorous; however, this is based on very few studies. Understanding the patterns of resource utilisation by species is crucial for assessing their role in ecosystems and in ensuring their conservation. Therefore, our study presents insights into fishing cat feeding patterns from mangroves of the Godavari delta, Andhra Pradesh, India. We collected 303 putative fishing cat scats and conducted diet analysis using 120 genetically identified scats. Our analysis revealed that fish was the most important prey for fishing cats in the study area (61.6% in frequency of occurrence), followed by crabs (30%) and rodents (28.3%). The prey composition did not vary significantly between the three seasons but there were differences between the survey years. The niche breadth also varied across the three seasons, with lowest niche breadth estimated in summers (0.36) with highest contribution of fish in the diet and highest in winters (0.75) probably due to increased contribution of other prey items along with fish. Our results suggest that long-term conservation and survival of the fishing cats depends on fish populations, which are the main prey of the species and thus recommend the need to protect the fish populations in the Godavari delta and the surrounding riverine habitats. Given the importance of fish to the diet of the fishing cat, the health of waterways throughout their distribution must be one of the focal strategies of conservation action.
... comm.), and it has been recorded in a snow leopard (Panthera uncia) at National Museums Scotland. This may reflect the very much more flexible vertebral column of the cats, which needs to move, in order to assist locomotion, especially when running and climbing (Kitchener et al. 2010). Even so, the prevalence of skeletal pathologies reported here is far higher than the 3.7% of 386 large cat skeletons reported with spondyloarthropathy, 2.1% with OA, and 2.1% with CPPD by Rothschild et al. (1998), with no difference in disease frequency between wild and captive animals. ...
As knowledge of husbandry has improved with the keeping of wild animals in zoos over the last 200 years, so longevity has also improved, bringing with it challenges owing to the development of pathologies associated with ageing. In this chapter, the principal skeletal and dental pathologies of aged zoo mammals are described, and the results of previous studies are summarised. Data are presented on pathologies from zoo specimens in National Museums Scotland that were collected over the last 30 years in a range of large mammals, including bears, big cats, great apes, babirusas, and pygmy hippopotamuses. The causes of these pathologies and the possible role of enrichment in reducing their prevalence are discussed. Awareness of the presence of these pathologies and their possible impact on behaviour and welfare is highlighted, as well as the need to monitor and assess individuals effectively, in order to minimise negative welfare.
... Vertical climbing-defined as the ascent or descent of substrates angled greater than 45°to the horizontal plane [1]-is a widespread behaviour across animal forms, including invertebrates [2,3], squamates [4,5] and mammals [6][7][8][9][10]. Strongly associated with arboreal life, vertical-climbing animals must resist downward slips and the pull of gravity, as falling can result in serious injury, death or predation [7]. ...
The forelimbs of hominoid primates (apes) are decidedly more flexible than those of monkeys, especially at the shoulder, elbow and wrist joints. It is tempting to link the greater mobility of these joints to the functional demands of vertical climbing and below-branch suspension, but field-based kinematic studies have found few differences between chimpanzees and monkeys when comparing forelimb excursion angles during vertical ascent (upclimbing). There is, however, a strong theoretical argument for focusing instead on vertical descent (downclimbing), which motivated us to quantify the effects of climbing directionality on the forelimb kinematics of wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and sooty mangabeys (Cercocebus atys). We found that the shoulders and elbows of chimpanzees and sooty mangabeys subtended larger joint angles during bouts of downclimbing, and that the magnitude of this difference was greatest among chimpanzees. Our results cast new light on the functional importance of downclimbing, while also burnishing functional hypotheses that emphasize the role of vertical climbing during the evolution of apes, including the human lineage.
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In this contribution, we investigate two sparassodonts from the Sarmiento Formation (Colhuehuapian Age; Early Miocene) recovered at the Patagonian locality of Sacanana, Chubut Province, Argentina. The first specimen (MACN-Pv CH1911), identified as Sipalocyon externus, is an almost complete cranium with upper dentition. The second specimen (MACN-Pv CH40), referred to Borhyaena macrodonta, consists of a fragmentary rostral portion of the face with associated m3–m4. The cranium of S. externus was studied through µCT-scanning to investigate its internal anatomy and infer paleoecological aspects of olfaction and hearing. In general, the endocranial anatomy and encephalization quotient are like those of other metatherians. We report the presence of an accessory transverse diploic sinus that has not previously been described in marsupials. Elements of the nasal cavity (e.g., turbinals, ossified nasal septum, cribriform plate) of S. externus exhibit features that are widespread among marsupials. Sense of olfaction, as evaluated from the cribriform plate and the 3D models of the olfactory bulbs, appears to have grossly resembled that of the domestic cat, a well-researched therian proxy. The dimensions of the tympanic membrane, as estimated from the preserved ectotympanic, suggest that the optimal hearing frequency of S. externus would have been similar to that of extant carnivorous marsupials. In sum, our study suggests that S. externus was a typical small-bodied (2–3 kg) hypercarnivorous metatherian that primarily relied on vision to hunt its prey, complemented by other sensory capabilities (olfaction and hearing), in a similar manner to small felids.
Various landscape and environmental factors influence animal movement and habitat selection. Lunar illumination affects nocturnal visual perception of many species and, consequently, may influence animal activity and habitat selection. However, the effects of varying moon stage may differ across taxa. Prey species often reduce activity during highly visible periods of night while predators may increase activity or alter their habitat use. Ocelots ( Leopardus pardalis ) and bobcats ( Lynx rufus ), two nocturnal predatory felids that coexist in southern Texas, may also alter their behavior in response to the phase of the moon. To evaluate the effects of lunar phase on habitat selection of ocelots and bobcats, we executed a step selection analysis using high-frequency GPS-telemetry data collected on each species (ocelot, N = 8; bobcat, N = 13) in southern Texas during 2017–2021 and compared step length during new versus full moons. We predicted that ocelots would increase use of dense thornshrub to reduce their visibility during a full moon. However, as bobcats are habitat generalists and are more active during crepuscular periods, we predicted less influence of moon phase on activity. Ocelots did not alter habitat selection in response to lunar phase but moved shorter distances during full moon phases. Conversely, bobcats selected for greater vegetation cover during full moons, possibly to facilitate hunting during brighter periods, but exhibited no difference in movement across lunar phase. We provide, to our knowledge, the first example of habitat selection by predators in relation to lunar phase and show differences across new versus full moons by ocelots and bobcats such that ocelots alter step length but not habitat selection while bobcats altered habitat selection but not step length in response to shifting lunar phase. Further, we suggest the high potential for ocelot-vehicle collisions on darker nights due to increased movement by ocelots and poor visibility for drivers.
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