Glossary

Felid

Any member of the cat family, Felidae, from the house cat to the tiger, and including extinct cats such as the sabre-toothed cats.

Also called: Felidae, member of the cat family, felids

A felid is any animal in the family Felidae, the cats. The group includes the domestic cat, the lion, tiger, leopard, jaguar, cheetah, puma, lynxes and many small wild cats, as well as extinct relatives. Cats of the family are meat-eating hunters with retractable claws in most species, sharp teeth and keen eyes and hearing.

The living species are divided into two subfamilies. Pantherinae holds the big cats of the genus Panthera, plus the clouded leopards. Felinae holds the rest, from the cheetah and cougar to the domestic cat, whose scientific name is Felis catus. The cat specialist group of the IUCN currently recognises 41 living species, though experts debate where some lines are drawn, and a few extinct groups, such as the sabre-toothed cats, are felids as well.

Felids live on every continent except Antarctica and Australia, apart from introduced domestic cats. Nearly all are solitary hunters. The word is related to feline, which is used more loosely as an adjective for anything cat-like. If you meet the term in a species profile, it simply means the animal is a cat. Because all felids share a body plan, some can interbreed in captivity, as in the hybrid cat. Many wild felids are under threat, as described under IUCN Red List.

Last reviewed November 7, 2026

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Related terms

Big cat An informal name for the largest wild cats, usually the lion, tiger, leopard and jaguar, and often the snow leopard, cheetah and cougar too. Apex predator An animal at the top of its food chain that adults of the species hunt and that has no natural predators of its own. Hyoid apparatus The chain of small bones and ligaments supporting the tongue and larynx, whose structure helps explain why some cats roar and others purr. Hybrid cat A cat bred from a domestic cat and a wild species, such as the Bengal from the Asian leopard cat or the Savannah from the serval. IUCN Red List The international inventory of how close species are to extinction, which sorts them into categories from Least Concern to Extinct.

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