Canada Lynx

Physical Features

The Bobcat has brown fur with black spots and it is twice the size of a regular house cat with an average weight of 20 to 30 pounds.  It gets its name from its distinctly short or bobbed tail that is only 2 to 8 inches long and ends in a black tip.  Its tail is an easy way of identifying it.

Bobcats have large ears that are slightly tufted at the tips and a striped ruff of fur covers their cheeks.  They have excellent vision and hearing but their sense of smell is rather poor.

Habitat

Bobcats live in dens in rock or tree crevices and they can be found in a wide variety of habitats, which include forests, deserts, mountains, swamps and farmlands.

The Bobcat is only found in North America, throughout the United States except for the Midwest.  It is also found in Canada and Mexico.

Diet

Bobcats are nocturnal and they do most of their hunting at night.  They are carnivores that mainly survive off a variety of small mammals.  They can commonly be found hunting and staking out rabbits, woodchucks, raccoons, skunks, squirrels and moles.  One of their most favored preys is the cotton-tail rabbit.  Their preferred method of capture is to wait motionlessly before pouncing on their prey and seizing it by its neck and cutting its spinal cord.

Bobcats do occasionally seek out larger prey such as deer, but these are captured while they are lying down and resting which allows the Bobcat to pounce on it more easily.  When their prey are small they will usually eat all of it in one go, but with larger captures they store the remains to feed on later.

Meat

The meat of a Bobcat is white in color with a taste similar to that of ham or pork. Their populations have proved to be resilient even though they have been hunted extensively for sport and for their fur.

Behavior

Bobcats are solitary animals apart from during the mating season.   They are territorial animals and they use their urine, feces, scent markings, scratches and scrapes to mark their territory.  The homeranges of females usually do not overlap, but those of males may overlap with the territories of a few females.  Their homranges vary in size and can be anything from less than a square mile to over 20 miles, but this is dependent on their location and on the season.  It is common for a Bobcat to cover a distance of 4 miles in a day.

The Bobcat is an excellent climber, but it seldom spends much time in trees.  During the day they usually rest on rocky ledges that are hidden amongst thickets.

Bobcats mate between February and March or between late April and early May.  The gestation period is 60 -70 days after which the female gives birth to a litter of between one and seven kittens.  The kittens are born with their eyes shut and it is only after 10 days that they open.  The mother will wean her young after about 10 weeks and introduce them to solid foods.  Her kittens will remain with her for about a year before they become independent and fend for themselves.  They reach maturity and are able to start breeding after 2 years of age.  They usually survive 6 to 8 years in the wild and rarely reach 10 years of age. Bobcats have a very deep growl and roar that it is easy to mistaken then for a mountain lion.

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