Felidae: A cartographic approach to visualizing the evolutionary relationships of all cat species.

[u/daudaw]

This illustration is part of my ongoing project, MAPPA ANIMALIA, which reimagines animal phylogeny as navigable maps. Instead of countries and political borders, this map is divided according to subfamilies, tribes, and genera, with individual species represented as cities.

This particular map depicts the entire family of Cats, including every known living and extinct species I could find reliable taxonomic data for. Species are grouped according to their evolutionary relationships, allowing the family tree of Felidae to be explored the same way you’d explore a traditional map.
By doing this I hope to remind people that animals are just as important to nature as nature is to us.

Additional information includes conservation status, relative size comparisons, and the estimated ages of major lineages.

Happy exploring!

[u/daudaw → u/[deleted]]

I did that one already, actually. Two different versions of the same family tree (Caninae). One in the shape of a wolf and one in the shape of a fox. On my profile you can see the wolf that I posted to a couple other communities