Felidae

Felidae ( ) is the family of mammals in the order Carnivora colloquially referred to as cats. A member of this family is also called a felid ( ).

The Felinae or small cats are a subfamily of the Felidae distinguished by a bony hyoid, because of which they can purr but not roar. Other authors have proposed an alternative definition for this subfamily, as comprising only the living conical-toothed cat genera, with two tribes, the Felini and Pantherini, and excluding the extinct sabre-toothed Machairodontinae.

The Pantherinae is a subfamily of the Felidae; it was named and first described by Reginald Innes Pocock in 1917 as only including the Panthera species, but later also came to include the clouded leopards (genus Neofelis). The Pantherinae genetically diverged from a common ancestor between and .

larger felid species

offspring of two different species of Felidae