Plans to make use of tiger parts harvested from farmed tigers in China represent an emerging threat, the authors argue. Any trade in tiger parts encourages poaching, because products made from animals farmed at great expense cannot be distinguished from products made from wild tigers.

Researchers found that about 43 percent of cheetah litters with more than one cub were fathered by more than one male, revealing a mating system that deviates from those used by other carnivores, most of which consist of single or sibling males monopolizing many females.

Conservationists say that if the tiger trade is made legal it would result in a massive surge in demand for parts and increased poaching in countries like India, which is facing a crisis in trying to save its own tiger populations.

Russia has launched a scheme to rebuild the population of endangered Persian leopards in its Caucasus mountains in time for the Winter Olympics it wants to host in the region in 2014.

The finding overturns assumptions about the mating behaviour of female cats, which, apart from the domesticated species, are widely assumed to have a single male to father a litter. “In wild populations it is widely assumed that males are promiscuous while females are coy,” the researchers reported in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society. “Our results indicate that female cheetahs are promiscuous, with high levels of multiple paternity.”

The new research tracked known cheetahs in the Serengeti National Park in north-west Tanzania over nine years. Analysis of DNA collected from the faecal samples of 176 cheetahs showed that infidelity was rife, although uncommon in other big cats.

Female felids play the field, DNA study reveals

The Scottish wildcat, known as Felis silvestris grampia, is a subspecies of the European wildcat. Although widespread throughout the UK until the 15th century, it is now not found in the wild below the M8 motorway which links Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The six Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris), five adults and a cub, which were caught on camera in the Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park in central Bhutan between September 2006 and May this year gave an insight into the otherwise elusive territory of the large cats.

WZ18 All-Weather Integrated Day-Night cameras from Extreme CCTV Inc. (Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada) are set to provide rare footage of some of the most endangered and mysterious felines. The video imagery is anticipated to impart a better understanding of Felis bieti (Chinese Desert Cat), Oreailurus jacobita (Andean Mountain Cat) and Panthera uncial (Snow Leopard) for the Wildlife Conservation Network's (Los Altos, Calif.) scientists and conservationists.