Amid widespread upheaval across the scientific research sector, Darwin’s Cats reached a scientific turning point in 2025. The initiative grew more than tenfold and launched a novel fur-based DNA sequencing method, helping build a research resource that previously did not exist in feline science. These advances now allow scientists to begin asking and answering entirely new questions about cats.
“Cats have historically been underrepresented in scientific research, making these early milestones so important,” said Elinor Karlsson, PhD. “Every new cat enrolled in Darwin’s Cats strengthens the science by pairing genetic data with insights from the people who know their cats best. Continued growth is what makes meaningful discovery possible.”
Underpinning these scientific advances is a rapid expansion in participation and data. Since January, growth across enrollment, surveys, and sequencing has provided the scale needed to support population-level research.
Darwin’s Cats by the numbers
This year, cats came flooding in to join the Darwin’s Cats initiative. Between January and December, the number of participating cats surged nearly 700% and our crew of community scientists grew more than tenfold. As participation expanded throughout the year, Darwin’s Cats began to reflect a far broader geographic and demographic representation of cats and their owners.
Some of Darwin’s Cats’ most remarkable progress in 2025 came from survey data. Community participation propelled the project past one million survey responses this spring, with momentum continuing through the end of the year following the launch of a highly requested health history survey.
In just 12 months, survey responses grew from 140,000 to more than 1.25 million, creating one of the largest phenotypic datasets in feline science. Collecting this volume of phenotypic data (observations about a cat’s appearance, behavior, and health) not only exceeded expectations—it is scientifically transformative. Gathering large-scale phenotypic data is one of the biggest hurdles in genetics research, and yet community science has turned that challenge into one of its greatest strengths. Darwin’s Cats community scientists are powering genetics research in ways that once seemed out of reach.
Advancing DNA sequencing through innovation
Our community scientists’ commitment was the driving force behind several meaningful scientific advances in 2025. As of December 2025, over 2,000 cats have joined Darwin’s Cats’ DNA sequencing research—representing more than a tenfold increase since the beginning of the year. Currently, our scientists are on track to complete sequencing 1,000 of these samples by early 2026. Once 1,000 cat genomes are sequenced and analyzed, our scientists will have a large enough genetic database to begin reporting early findings on population-level patterns like ancestry and genetic diversity.
