Bobcat
The bobcat (Lynx rufus) is a medium sized wild cat native to North America and the most common wild cat on the continent. It is a true lynx, the smallest of the four species, and gets its name from its short, bobbed tail, which has a black tip on top and white underneath. It has small black ear tufts, a ruff of fur on its cheeks and a coat that ranges from reddish brown to gray, marked with dark spots and bars; very rarely, black bobcats appear in Florida and New Brunswick. About twice the size of a house cat, it lives from southern Canada through almost all of the United States to central Mexico, in forests, swamps, deserts, scrubland, farmland and the edges of towns. It hunts mainly by stealth, and rabbits and hares are its main prey, along with rodents, birds and sometimes deer. Bobcats are solitary and mark their territories with scent and scratches, and in the breeding season they give loud screams and yowls. Once heavily trapped for fur, the species has recovered in most regions, and a 2010 study estimated 2.35 to 3.57 million bobcats in the United States alone.
What is a bobcat?
The bobcat, Lynx rufus, is a wild cat of North America and the most widespread and numerous wild cat on the continent. When people search for the bobcat animal, they mean this cat, not the construction machine that borrowed its name. The German naturalist Johann Schreber described it in 1777. Its common name comes from its tail, which looks cut short or bobbed, and in Spanish it is called lince rojo, or gato montés in much of Mexico. Despite the name, the bobcat is a true lynx. It belongs to the genus Lynx together with the Canada lynx, the Eurasian lynx and the Iberian lynx, and it is the smallest of the four. It shares their short tail, long legs, ear tufts and facial ruff, but it is the only lynx that has adapted to warm places such as swamps and deserts. Scientists recognize two subspecies, one in the east and one in the west of the continent, with the line roughly following the Great Plains. The bobcat is a true survivor. It lives close to people in many places, and while most wild cats are declining, bobcat numbers have grown in much of the United States since the 1970s.
Bobcat vs lynx: what is the difference?
Bobcat or lynx is one of the most common questions about North American wild cats. The short answer is that the bobcat is a lynx, but it is not the same species as the Canada lynx, the other lynx of North America. The two look alike and even overlap in parts of southern Canada and the northern United States, but there are clear ways to tell them apart. The tail is the best clue. A bobcat's tail has dark bars and a black tip only on the top, with white underneath, while the Canada lynx has a tail tip that is completely black, as if dipped in ink. The Canada lynx has much longer ear tufts, usually more than 2.5 centimeters, a fuller ruff on the face and very large, furry feet that work like snowshoes. The bobcat has shorter tufts, smaller feet and a coat that is usually more reddish and more clearly spotted, while the lynx looks grayer and plainer. Their lifestyles differ too. The Canada lynx lives in snowy northern forests and depends almost entirely on snowshoe hares. The bobcat lives in a much wider range of habitats, eats many kinds of prey and struggles in very deep snow, which is why the lynx takes over in the far north.
How big is a bobcat compared to a house cat?
A bobcat is about twice the size of an average house cat, though people often think it looks bigger because of its long legs and thick fur. Adults usually measure 65 to 105 centimeters from nose to rump, plus a short tail of about 10 to 19 centimeters, and stand around 45 to 60 centimeters at the shoulder. Males are clearly larger than females. Males weigh about 9 to 10 kilograms on average and females about 7, but the full range runs from about 4 to 18 kilograms. Size also changes across the continent: the biggest bobcats live in the north, in places like Canada, Maine and Minnesota, while the smallest live in the deserts of the Southwest and Mexico and in Florida. Compared with a house cat, a bobcat has longer legs, especially the back legs, which gives it a bouncing walk, larger paws, a wider face with a ruff of fur, small black tufts on the ears and, of course, the short tail. The backs of its ears are black with a white spot in the middle. Small bobcats seen in backyards are often young animals, while very large, long tailed cats are usually cougars rather than bobcats.
Are there black bobcats?
Yes, but black bobcats are extremely rare. They are melanistic animals, with a dark pigment that makes the coat look black, although the spots can often still be seen in good light, just as in a black leopard. Most records come from two very different places. In Florida, more than ten black bobcats had been documented by the 1990s, almost all in the central and southern parts of the state, and a recent camera trap study in the Greater Everglades found that melanistic bobcats made up less than half a percent of all bobcat photos. The other hot spot is New Brunswick in eastern Canada, where the first black bobcat was trapped in 1983 near Saint John, and several more have been recorded since. Scientists think a mutation in a gene that controls coat color is behind it. Most other reports of black bobcats turn out to be house cats, wet bobcats or poor photos. Bobcats also vary a lot in normal color. Some are reddish brown, others gray or almost silver, especially in the north in winter, and desert bobcats tend to be pale and sandy. Very rarely, white or very pale bobcats have also been photographed, but they are even scarcer than black ones.
Where do bobcats live?
Bobcats live from southern Canada through almost all of the contiguous United States to central Mexico. The IUCN lists them in nine Canadian provinces, from British Columbia to Nova Scotia, in nearly every state of the lower 48, and in Mexico as far south as Oaxaca, Guerrero and Veracruz, from sea level up to about 3,500 meters. They do not live in Alaska or Hawaii. Few wild cats use so many habitats. Bobcats live in northern and eastern forests, Florida swamps, southern pine woods, Texas brushland, California chaparral and oak woodland, Rocky Mountain canyons and the deserts of the Southwest, where desert bobcats rest in rocky outcrops during the heat of the day. They also live on farmland with patches of woods and on the edges of towns and suburbs, from Los Angeles to Houston. What they need most is cover, such as thick brush, rocks or forest, and plenty of rabbits or rodents. Deep snow limits them in the north, and for a long time intensive farming kept them out of parts of the Midwest. In recent decades bobcats have returned to states such as Ohio, Indiana and Iowa, where they had become rare or vanished in the twentieth century.
What do bobcats eat?
Bobcats are meat eaters, and rabbits and hares are the base of their diet in most of their range, from cottontails in the south to snowshoe hares in the north. When rabbits are scarce they switch easily to squirrels, mice, voles, rats, woodrats and other rodents, and they also take birds such as turkeys and quail, along with reptiles, opossums and sometimes fish. In some places, especially in the northeast in winter, bobcats hunt white tailed deer, mostly fawns and weak adults, although they can kill a healthy adult deer by leaping onto it when it is bedded down. A bobcat usually eats about half a kilogram to a kilogram of meat a day, and after killing a large animal it covers the remains with leaves or snow and returns to feed over several days. This flexible diet is one of the main reasons the bobcat can live in so many different places. It also makes bobcats useful neighbors for farmers, since they eat many rodents and rabbits. Near towns they sometimes take free roaming chickens or small pets, and in suburbs they can be poisoned by eating rodents that have swallowed rat poison, a problem well documented in California.
How does a bobcat hunt?
The bobcat is built for ambush hunting. Its spotted and barred coat breaks up its outline in dappled light, so it can hide in brush, grass or rocks almost anywhere. Padded paws let it move silently over leaves and stone, and it places its back feet in the prints of its front feet, which keeps it quiet and leaves neat, straight tracks. The ear tufts and large ears give it very sharp hearing, so it can pinpoint the rustle of a mouse under grass or snow. Like other cats, its eyes have a reflective layer behind the retina that helps it see in low light at dawn, at dusk and at night. A bobcat has two main hunting methods. It may stalk slowly toward its prey, freezing whenever the animal looks up, and then rush the last few meters. Or it may wait in ambush near a rabbit trail or a burrow, sometimes for a long time, and pounce when the prey comes close. Strong hind legs let it leap up to about 3 meters in a single bound, and it can run in short bursts at around 50 kilometers per hour. Bobcats are also good climbers, using trees to rest, to escape coyotes and dogs, and sometimes to watch for prey.
Do bobcats live alone?
Yes. Adult bobcats are solitary and spend most of the year alone, except when a mother is raising kittens or during the brief mating season. Each bobcat has a home range that it marks with urine, droppings left in visible spots and claw scratches on trees and logs. Home ranges vary a lot with the amount of food: in places rich in rabbits they may cover only a few square kilometers, while in poor habitat they can reach more than 100. A male's range is usually larger and overlaps those of several females, while females tend to avoid one another. Bobcats are most active around dawn and dusk, but they may hunt at any hour, and in quiet areas or in winter they are often seen in daylight. They rest in thickets, hollow logs, rock crevices or under fallen trees. Most of the year bobcats are silent, but during the mating season, from late winter into spring, they make loud, eerie screams, yowls and hisses that are often mistaken for a woman screaming or a fight between house cats. Bobcats do not hibernate. They stay active all winter, although very deep snow makes hunting hard for them, since their feet are much smaller than those of the Canada lynx.
How do bobcats raise their kittens?
Bobcats mate mostly from late winter into early spring, although in the south the season can be longer. After a pregnancy of about 60 to 70 days, the female gives birth, usually in April or May, in a hidden den in a rock crevice, a hollow log, a thicket or sometimes under a shed or a porch. A litter usually has 2 to 4 kittens, sometimes 1 to 6. Bobcat cubs, more correctly called kittens, weigh around 280 to 340 grams at birth, are covered in spotted fur and open their eyes at about 10 days old. The mother raises them alone and often moves them to new dens. The kittens begin to eat meat at about a month old and are weaned at around two months. By late summer they follow their mother on hunting trips, and she brings them live prey to practice on. Young bobcats stay with their mother through their first autumn and often into winter, about 9 to 12 months in total, and then leave to find a territory of their own, sometimes travelling dozens of kilometers. Females can breed at about one year old, males usually in their second year. If you find bobcat kittens alone, the mother is almost always nearby hunting, and they should be left where they are.
Are bobcats dangerous?
Bobcats are not dangerous to people in normal circumstances. They are shy and usually run away when they see or hear a person, and healthy bobcats almost never attack humans. Most of the rare attacks that do happen involve rabid animals, which can behave in strange, aggressive ways, or bobcats that were cornered, trapped or defending kittens. Anyone bitten or scratched by a bobcat should see a doctor, since rabies is a real risk. Seeing a bobcat in a backyard or on a trail is not a sign of danger by itself, because bobcats are often active by day and many live close to towns. The best response is to give it space, make noise or wave your arms if it does not leave, and never try to feed it or approach kittens. The greater risk is to small animals. Bobcats can kill chickens, rabbits kept outdoors and sometimes small cats or very small dogs, especially at dawn and dusk. Keeping pets indoors at those hours, putting poultry in secure coops at night and not leaving pet food outside are the simplest ways to avoid problems. Larger dogs and adult people are not prey for a bobcat.
Is the bobcat endangered?
The bobcat is not endangered. The IUCN Red List classifies it as Least Concern with a stable trend, in an assessment made in February 2016. Its numbers have grown in much of its range since the 1970s. A 2010 study by Roberts and Crimmins, based on surveys from state wildlife agencies, estimated between 2.35 and 3.57 million bobcats in the United States alone, and found that populations were increasing in most states. That was not always the case. In the twentieth century bobcats were heavily trapped and hunted, and when trade in spotted cat furs such as ocelot and leopard was banned in the 1970s, demand for bobcat pelts rose sharply. To control this trade, the bobcat was listed in Appendix II of CITES, mainly because its fur looks similar to that of more threatened cats, and each pelt exported from the United States must be tagged. Today bobcats are still legally hunted and trapped as furbearers in most states and Canadian provinces under seasons and quotas, while California banned bobcat trapping in 2015 and sport hunting in 2020. The main modern threats are habitat loss, roads and rat poison. The Mexican bobcat was once listed as endangered in the United States but was removed from the list in 2005.
Where it is found
The Bobcat can be found in places such as:
