Show me your tail, if you have one! Is inbreeding depression occurring in wildcats (Felis silvestris silvestris) from Italy?

Knowledge of genetic diversity is important to wildlife conservation because genetically depleted populations experience an increased risk of extinction. Mammalian carnivores are characterized by small and fragmented populations and low dispersal, so that genetic erosion can lead to the fixation of deleterious genes relatively quickly, leading to morphological abnormalities. Kinked tails and cowlicks are indicative of inbreeding depression and have been described in two wild cat species so far, the puma (Puma concolor) and the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus). Here we report the first records of morphological abnormalities in five populations of the European wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris) …