lazy lion || Fauler Löwe

Felidae is the biological family of the cats; a member of this family is called a felid. Felids are the strictest carnivores of the thirteen terrestrial families in the order Carnivora, although the three families of marine mammals comprising the superfamily pinnipedia are as carnivorous as the felids. The most familiar felid is the domestic cat, which first became associated with humans about 10,000 years ago, but the family includes all other wild cats including the big cats.

Extant felids belong to one of two subfamilies: Pantherinae (which includes the tiger, the lion, the jaguar, and the leopard), and Felinae (which includes the cougar, the cheetah, the lynxes, the ocelot, and the domestic cat).

The first felids emerged during the Oligocene, about 25 million years ago. In prehistoric times, there was a third subfamily known as Machairodontinae, which included the "saber-toothed cats" such as the well known Smilodon. There were also other superficially cat-like mammals, such as the marsupial sabertooth Thylacosmilus or the Nimravidae, which are not included in Felidae despite superficial similarities.

The Feliformia ("cat-like" carnivorans, also Feloidea) are a suborder within the order Carnivora and includes cats (large and small), hyenas, mongooses, civets and related taxa. The other suborder of Carnivora is Caniformia ("dog-like" carnivorans). One shared characteristic distinguishes Carnivora from all other mammals: the possession of the four carnassial teeth in the front of the jaw.

The separation of Carnivora into the broad groups of feliforms and caniforms is widely accepted, as is the definition of Feliformia and Caniformia as suborders (sometimes superfamilies). The classification of feliforms as part of the Feliformia suborder or under separate groupings continues to evolve.

Systematic classifications dealing with only extant taxa^[1,2] include all feliforms into the Feliformia suborder, though variations exist in the definition and grouping of families and genera. The extant families as reflected in the taxa chart at right and the discussions in this article reflect the most contemporary and well supported views (as at the time of writing this article). Molecular phylogenies show the Feliformia to be monophyletic.^[8]

Systematic classifications dealing with both extant and extinct taxa vary more widely. Some^[4] separate the feliforms (extant and extinct) as: Aeluroidea (superfamily) and Feliformia (suborder). Others^[3] include all feliforms (extant, extinct and "possible ancestors") into the Feliformia suborder. Recent studies suggest this inclusion of "possible ancestors" into Feliformia (or even Carnivora) may be spurious (Wesley-Hunt and Flynn 2005).^[5] The extinct (†) families as reflected in the taxa chart at right are the least problematic in terms of their relationship with extant feliforms (with the most problematic being Nimravidae).

The lion (Panthera leo) is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg (550 lb) in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger. Wild lions currently exist in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Asia with an endangered remnant population in Gir Forest National Park in India, having disappeared from North Africa and Southwest Asia in historic times. Until the late Pleistocene, about 10,000 years ago, the lion was the most widespread large land mammal after humans. They were found in most of Africa, across Eurasia from western Europe to India, and in the Americas from the Yukon to Peru. The lion is a vulnerable species, having seen a possibly irreversible population decline of thirty to fifty percent over the past two decades in its African range. Lion populations are untenable outside designated reserves and national parks. Although the cause of the decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are currently the greatest causes of concern. Within Africa, the West African lion population is particularly endangered.