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Leopards, jaguars, and the domestic cat all regularly climb trees, but lions and tigers rarely do. From what I can tell from a basic online search, the latter are inexpert tree climbers, but they theoretically can.

My question is about the direction of evolution of tree climbing among the felidae. Did the ancestor of felidae have the ability to climb trees, and lions and tigers lost the agility necessary to do so with ease, or is this an example of convergent evolution, and jaguars and leopards happen to excel at it for physiological reasons? If so, what are those reasons?

What makes me unsure of the former is that cheetahs, not nearly as large as tigers and lions and quite agile, also have difficulty climbing trees. Is this a primordial behavior of the cats' ancestor or just a learned behavior among cats?

Some studies at least suggests it's that scapular shape is indicative of climbing skill. Canids are not regularly known to climb trees, though many bears do.

To be clear, I am not asking "why do A have Y ability but not B." I'm asking about historical priority. Was this a characteristic that existed in e.g. Proailurus, or did it evolve separately? I'm aware that the "why" questions are speculation and meaningless, but instead I'm interested in the history of this family of species.

theforestecologist
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  • small cats climb trees to hunt or to protect themselves against predators,lions and tigers have no need for protection against predators. – trond hansen Jul 10 '22 at 06:18
  • @trondhansen I thought about that, but as I mentioned in the question, cheetahs also have trouble climbing trees, and they are preyed upon by lions, hyenas, and even jaguars. That's why I was unsure. –  Jul 10 '22 at 13:22
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    Related: https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/35532/why-do-some-bad-traits-evolve-and-good-ones-dont?rq=1 – Bryan Krause Jul 11 '22 at 01:14
  • Does this answer your question? Why do some bad traits evolve, and good ones don't? – tyersome Jul 11 '22 at 01:33
  • Welcome to Biology.SE. The Biology.SE community has agreed that questions that show little or no prior research effort are off-topic on this site. Please [edit] your question and tell us where you've looked for answers, what you do know about the topic, and where exactly you still have questions. Under researched questions may be subject to down-voting and closure. You also seem to have multiple questions, which is another reason for closure. Thank you for taking the [tour], but please consult the [help] starting with [ask] for details and edit or delete your post accordingly. – tyersome Jul 11 '22 at 01:38
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    @BryanKrause No, that doesn't answer my question at all. I'm asking about historical development. Did big cats slowly lose the ability, or is it a factor of convergent evolution? I'm not interested in so much in ad hoc guesses of "why" (though I do enjoy speculation, thus that one throwaway line). –  Jul 11 '22 at 01:55
  • @tyresome Fair enough. When I get a chance, I'll add in a few articles I read on this topic. Is there a requirement concerning the quality of the sources? Must they all be peer reviewed studies? –  Jul 11 '22 at 01:55
  • FYI: I've seen multiple videos/accounts of tigers in trees -- especially cubs. Adults are certainly known to climb a tree once in a while, too (a Google search I'm sure will pull up many images/videos). I think the infrequency is much more due to their large size: 1) bigger cats need bigger branches ; this is supported by cubs being more frequent climbers than adults. 2) being an apex predator doesn't really require going into trees for safety.... I think your question is ok and could receive a useful answer. But at least some of that answer likely will challenge your premise to some degree. – theforestecologist Jul 11 '22 at 12:25
  • @CMW regarding quality of sources : no there is no official requirement. However, poor quality sources don't improve any post, and such poor quality sources may do little to improve community response to a post. Certainly, many posters here simply cite non peer-reviewed sources such as web pages in questions. That's often ok (depending on source). But please use sources that reflect your level of competence/experience. Thanks for the question and effort to respond/edit. – theforestecologist Jul 11 '22 at 12:36
  • @theforestecologist That's certainly fair. An answer that is basically your two points isn't unwelcome. It wouldn't tell me too much about felid ancestry, but I'm happy to be wrong about my initial observation. –  Jul 11 '22 at 12:50
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    https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/03/12/caturday-felid-why-dont-lions-climb-trees-cat-butt-pencil-sharpener-and-a-refugee-cat-from-ukraine/ . If you actually had good records of tree-climbing ability you could do character mapping on a felid phylogeny to try to find out ... Mattern, Michelle Y., and Deborah A. McLennan. “Phylogeny and Speciation of Felids.” Cladistics 16, no. 2 (June 1, 2000): 232–53. https://doi.org/10.1006/clad.2000.0132. – Ben Bolker Jul 11 '22 at 15:42

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