Talk:Felidae

Likely error in phylogeny cladogram

The cladogram in the "Phylogeny" section likely has an error in the (bottom) "Domestic cat lineage" part. It seems to indicate that "Domestic cat (F. catus)" is NOT directly descended from "African wildcat (F. lybica)". It therefore disagrees with the WP cat, African wildcat, and Wildcat articles. Unless another editor shows me that I misunderstand, I will modify this cladogram to conform with those other articles.

While I understand what you're saying, the problem is that this is exactly what the source used says. If we're going to use that particular citation as a source for the cladogram, we have to make sure that they match, otherwise WP:SYNTH applies. If we can find another, equally good (or better) source that gives a different pattern for the whole thing, then we can use that, but until then we're stuck. We could, of course, add some commentary to make it clearer, using the sources elsewhere in the article to back up that specifically. Anaxial (talk) 06:54, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that is the problem, one that has bothered me for some time. The cladogram follows the source and a number of reviews since continue to use that arrangement, even though we know it is doesn't accurately represent the domestic cat relationship within the wildcat complex. We could use a different reference for Felis (there are arguments why this wouldn't be synthesis), but the main study on this has two different arrangements in difference analyses (position of bieti) and the position of the domestic cat in nested within lybica. Adding text for clarification is always a good thing, but we have to be careful not to overdo one issue in this broad scoped article.

That said, the cladogram doesn't strictly follow the Johnson et al (2006) study. The position of the jaguar and leopard is swapped, following later studies (Davis et al, 2010; Li et al, 2016)) and the second clouded leopard species, which was recognised after the study, is included. However, the Li et al (2016) study includes these changes in their nuclear genome analysis. I've added this reference. I also think we should change the position of the bay cat lineage to that of the biparental nuclear genome analysis in Fig 1 of Li et al (2016). —  Jts1882 | talk  09:15, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Li et al. (2016) was already used in the previous subsection, so I replaced the full ref by the already named one. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 09:35, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Since apart from position of bay cat lineage, there are a few more differences between the 2 models : perhaps we should use the later one in the cladogram and merely present differences to the former one in text ? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 09:46, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Here are the changes relative to Johnson et al (2006) if we go for the biparental nuclear genome analysis in Fig 1 of Li et al. (2016)

1. Position of leopard and jaguar (as in current cladogram; also matches Davis et al, 2010).
2. Includes Sunda clouded leopard (as in current cladogram).
3. Includes Sunda leopard leopard (missing in current cladogram).
4. Position of Andean mountain cat in ocelot lineage.
5. Includes two tigrina specimens. Do these match the new species divisions?
6. But it still has the domestic cat as sister to the European wildcat.

Any I've missed? —  Jts1882 | talk  09:59, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps, it is also relevant to mention the difference in sample size. Li et al. (2016) analysed 100 cat samples. How many did Johnson et al. (2006) use? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 10:27, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

I've updated the cladogram on one of my user pages (see User:Jts1882/phylogeny/Felidae#Modular_version) —  Jts1882 | talk 

Felidae

Panthera lineage   Pantherinae     Panthera   Leopard (P. pardus) Lion (P. leo) Jaguar (P. onca) Snow leopard (P. uncia) Tiger (P. tigris)   Neofelis   Clouded leopard (N. nebulosa) Sunda clouded leopard (N. diardi)   Felinae   Caracal lineage   Caracal   Caracal (C. caracal) African golden cat (C. aurata)   Leptailurus   Serval (L. serval) Ocelot lineage   Leopardus   Geoffroy's cat (L. geoffroyi) Kodkod (L. guigna) Southern tiger cat (L. guttulus) Oncilla or Northern tiger cat (L. tigrina) Pampas cat (L. colocola) Andean mountain cat (L. jacobita) Ocelot (L. pardalis) Margay (L. wiedii) Bay cat lineage   Catopuma   Bay cat (C. badia) Asian golden cat (C. temminckii)   Pardofelis   Marbled cat (P. marmorata)   Lynx   Eurasian lynx (L. lynx) Iberian lynx (L. pardinus) Canada lynx (L. canadensis) Bobcat (L. rufus) Lynx lineage     Puma lineage   Puma   Cougar (P. concolor)   Herpailurus   Jaguarundi (H. yagouaroundi)   Acinonyx   Cheetah (A. jubatus) Leopard cat lineage   Otocolobus   Pallas's cat (O. manul)   Prionailurus   Rusty-spotted cat (P. rubiginosus) Flat-headed cat (P. planiceps) Fishing cat (P. viverrinus) Sunda leopard cat (P. javanensis) Leopard cat (P. bengalensis)   Felis   Jungle cat (F. chaus) Black-footed cat (F. nigripes) Sand cat (F. margarita)   wildcats   Chinese mountain cat (F. bieti) African wildcat (F. lybica) European wildcat (F. silvestris) Domestic cat (F. catus) Domestic cat lineage

Sorry for late reply! I already saw your cladogram on your user page. And you know what I would like a lot: to show the cladogram the other way round : namely the early divergers at the bottom and the later ones on top. So that the clouded leopards and Panthera are shown at the bottom and Dom cat on top. Is that difficult to implement ? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 18:42, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

It's not difficult to implement, but I understand there is a weird way the cladograms are displayed when using Safari on Apple devices (different HTML table rendering) that makes the cladograms look worse when done that way. I can't verify that myself as I have no suitable devices. —  Jts1882 | talk  19:57, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Do I understand you correctly that the rendering of above in Safari on Apple is correct, and only the rendering of upside-down cladogram weird? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 20:37, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

No. My understanding is that all the Safari rendering of HTML tables is weird, different from all other browsers, but I can't verify this. I've been told they look better when the more nested groups are at the bottom. I think this arrangement makes sense for web presentations where you are scrolling down, whereas the other way is better suited to the printed page. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:48, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

A possible solution is perhaps to take a screenshot of the cladogram and embed it as a jpg file ? The hyperlinks are not really needed, as they are already provided in the text. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 20:37, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm not so keen on this as it becomes difficult for editors to make changes (albeit sometimes this is useful). One thing I want to do in future is use the {{clade}} template to output SVG code, which could then be used to generate the images. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:48, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Returning to the (inconsistent) wildcat and domestic cat lineage: Tx to all for all of the commentary, which shows me that I should defer to you others to resolve this. I only note that at least one of the wildcat-related WP articles cites this 2017 paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5612713/ , which posits a different phyl. sub-tree for wildcats, et al. (That paper's discussion of genome analysis is over my head, for now.) Acwilson9 (talk) 07:43, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

The authors of this *2007* article had a) a much different sample size and b) from a much smaller spectrum of species for analysis than above mentioned author teams. And they grouped several as subspecies under F. silvestris that are recognized as distinct species today. But because of their focus, their proposed cladogram is not so relevant for the cladogram of the whole family, imo. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 09:07, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

I think it would be valid to change the wildcat complex arrangement based on a different source, as long as stated clearly. I don't think this qualifies as synthesis because no new conclusions are introduced. Alternatively we could add a footnote explaining the discrepancy. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:48, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Seems entirely reasonable to me, as long as we make it clear. Anaxial (talk) 17:34, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

As a placeholder until an expert in both kitty phylogeny and Apple-device display can implement this, and to inform readers that the editors are aware of this imperfection, I added "{{Corrections to Felis/Domestic cat lineage await a better source|date=July 2020}}". (As I noted above on 20 May, I myself am not competent to implement this.) Acwilson9 (talk) 22:53, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

The source is the best available for now. It's apparently your device and browser used that cannot render the info correctly. Just read the source. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 08:08, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

That source also has three slightly different trees, the mitochondrial DNA tree, which places bieti basal to the rest of the complex, consistent with its currently recognised species status, and the two SNP trees (with and without hybrids), which places bieti in the lybica/domestic cat clade. The latter is probably the best result as it is nuclear DNA, but would be confusing in the Felidae article because the Chinese desert cat is recognised as a species. The Driscoll paper clearly treats bieti as a subspecies, but I can't think of any taxonomic paper or resource doing the same. It's a shame they haven't revisited the genetics of this complex, although doing so woould probably cause problems for conservation of the Chinese desert cat. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:42, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

cladograms for discussion

Johnson et al 2006 autosomal/X- & Y-linked/mito
Li et al (2017) <biparental nuclear genome

Felis Jungle cat (Felis chaus) Black-footed cat (Felis nigripes) Sand cat (Felis margarita) European wildcat (Felis silvestris) Domestic cat (Felis catus) African wildcat (Felis lybica) Chinese desert cat (Felis bieti)

Li et al (2017)
mitogenome

Felis Jungle cat (Felis chaus) Black-footed cat (Felis nigripes) Sand cat (Felis margarita) European wildcat (Felis silvestris) African wildcat (Felis lybica) Domestic cat (Felis catus) Chinese desert cat (Felis bieti)

Driscoll et al (2007)
SNP (Fig 2C)

Sand cat (Felis margarita) European wildcat (Felis silvestris) South African wildcat (F. lybica cafra) Asian wildcat (F. lybica ornata) Chinese desert cat (Felis bieti) Neareastern wildcat (F. lybica lynica) Domestic cat (Felis catus)

Driscoll et al (2007)
mt-DNA (Fig 2A)

Sand cat (Felis margarita) Chinese desert cat (Felis bieti) European wildcat (Felis silvestris) South African wildcat (F. lybica cafra) Asian wildcat (F. lybica ornata) Neareastern wildcat (F. lybica lynica) Domestic cat (Felis catus)

For reference. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:22, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

In 2017, the IUCN's Cat Classification Task Force retained Driscoll et al.'s 2007 conclusion, that F. lybica be classified as F. catus' direct wild ancestor. 89.206.112.12 (talk) 13:04, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

References

Update cladogram

I've updated the main Felidae cladogram to use the biparental nuclear genome analysis of Li et al (2017). This was prompted by an edit by Soupreet Dey adding the Sunda leopard cat and southern tiger cat to the old tree based on Johnson et al (2006).

This phylogenetic tree still has the problematic topology for the domestic cat lineage where the domestic cat is closer to the European wild cat than the African wild cat. While I think we could legitimately change the tree to show the Driscoll et al (2007) wildcat arrangement with an appropriate explanation (this is not WP:SYNTHESIS if properly sourced and explained), I think it might be better to leave the tree as is and add a footnote that the domestic cat is derived from the African wild cat. —  Jts1882 | talk  15:36, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Differences between felidae and feline

I believe you're suggesting that they are one in the same. They are not. 2600:1005:A100:906C:F5B7:843E:823D:63C3 (talk) 12:53, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Feline is used in more than one sense. In the strict sense used scientifically, members of the cat family Felidae are felids and members of the subfamily Felinae are felines, distinct from pantherines. However, in common English usage, feline is used more generally. —  Jts1882 | talk  13:01, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

What Jts1882 said; taxonomically speaking, "felid" refers to any member of Felidae as a whole, and "feline" specifically refers to members of Felinae. Colloquially speaking, "felid" and "feline" are interchangeable.--Mr Fink (talk) 14:00, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

WP is not written in colloquial English, so we should not be refering to Felidae as felines, but as felids.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:02, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Add an interactive visualiser

I took inspiration on this wikipedia page to develop a visualiser that allows to navigate dynamically using a tree through the phylogenetic relationships of living felids.

[1]https://demo1.antonio-goncalves.com/

I think it could be interesting to include it on this page.

If the visualiser is included on this page I would be willing to keep it up to date.

I would be also be open to make the appropriate changes to the visualiser in order to comply with possible rules of this page. Amr.goncalves (talk) 20:16, 22 September 2024 (UTC)