Cat Evolution: From Doppelgangers to House Cats and Lions

A long time ago during the Early Paleocene a group of tree dwelling mammals these were the basal carnivora (the clade, not the diet) sometime time later in the span of a few million years, two suborders evolved; the dog-like Caniformia and the cat-like Feliformia.

The Feliforms resembled civets, barely anything resembling a cat until a linage of basal Feliforms splintered off from the rest of the other feliforms. These were the Nimravidae, a linage of feliforms that resembled sabertooth cats to a degree however unlike cats the Nimravids brains stayed the same size regardless of body size. They went extinct when their habitats the forests gave way to grasslands and having to compete with another linage of Feliforms...

The Aeluroidae evolved during the middle of the Nimravids' reign and from this clade the basal aeluroids Nandiniidae, the infraorder Feloidea (Cats and Linsangs), and infraorder Viverroidea (Civets, Hyenas, Genets, and Mongooses) evolved and latter over took the niches the Nimravids held for so many millions of years.

Since this topic is about Cats, we will focus on the Feloids for now. The Feloids later evolved into Prionodontidae (Asiatic Linsangs) and the related basal Haplogale, the cat-like Barbourofelidae and basal Feloid Stenogale (which may be the ancestors of true cats), and finally Felidae (True Cats)

Felids were at once a single unbroken linage of basal cats called Proailurinae until around the miocene its decedents diversified into three subfamilies: Machairodontinae (True Sabertooth Cats), Pantherinae (Big Cats), and Felinae (Small Cats)

Machairodontinae further divided into four clade tribes: Homotherini, which includes Homotherium, Amphimachairodus, Lokotunjailurus, Nimravides, and Xenosmilus.

Machairodontini, which includes Machairodus, Hemimachairodus, and Miomachairodus

Metailurini, which includes Metailurus, Stenailurus, Adelphailurus, Dinofelis, and Yoshi (Not the Nintendo character)

Smilodontini, which includes Smilodon, Megantereon, Paramachairodus, Promegantereon, and Rhizosmilodon

Soon the Sabertooth Cats like the Nimravidae were outcompeted by another linage, Evolution never stays still as the sabertoothed cats were evolving so too their relatives, the Pantherinae and Felinae; by the time of the pleistocene all sabertoothed linages were wiped out save for smilodon who was in turned wiped out by a hairless ape known as Man at the dawn of the holocene.  

The Pantherinae contained only two genera: Neofelis (Clouded Leopards) and Panthera.

Panthera contains the oldest and possibly the most basal Panthera shawi, Panthera palaeosinensis, Panthera blytheae, and the sole living basal Panthera uncia (Modern Snow Leopard). 

Panthera zdanskyi (Possible Tiger ancestor) and Panthera sondaica (either a close relative to the Tiger or a Tiger subspecies), and Panthera tigris (Modern Tiger)

Panthera gombaszoegensis (European Jaguar), Panthera schreuderi (which may have been the same as gombaszoegensis), and Panthera onca (Modern Jaguar)

Panthera youngi (Japanese Lion), Panthera atrox (American Lion), Panthera spelaea (European Lion), Panthera leo (Modern Lion), and Panthera pardus (Modern Leopard)

Then you have the smaller Felinae (Small Cats) which contains like 20 genera. I will add them in a bit, power is fluctuating