Iberian Lynx
The Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) is a wild cat that lives only on the Iberian Peninsula, in Spain and Portugal, and one of the rarest cats on Earth. It is a medium sized lynx with long legs, a tawny coat covered in bold dark spots, a short tail with a black tip, long black ear tufts and a striking beard of fur on its cheeks that sets it apart from the larger Eurasian lynx. Adults weigh about 8 to 16 kg, and males are clearly heavier than females. It depends almost entirely on the European rabbit, so the diseases that crashed rabbit numbers in the twentieth century pushed it close to extinction. In 2002 fewer than 100 remained, in two small groups in Doñana and the Sierra Morena. Captive breeding, releases, habitat restoration and rabbit recovery turned that around: the 2025 census counted 2,663 lynx, and in 2024 the IUCN moved the species from Endangered to Vulnerable. It is one of the greatest recovery stories in European wildlife, although traffic still kills more than 200 lynx a year.
What is the Iberian lynx?
The Iberian lynx, Lynx pardinus, is one of the four lynx species and the only wild cat found exclusively on the Iberian Peninsula. In Spain it is called lince ibérico and in Portugal lince ibérico too, and in English it is sometimes searched for as the Spain lynx or the Iberian cat. It was described by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Temminck in 1827. For a long time some scientists treated it as a subspecies of the Eurasian lynx, but genetic studies confirmed that it is a separate species that split from its northern relative long ago. The two are easy to tell apart. The Iberian lynx is about half the size of the Eurasian lynx, has bolder and more evenly spaced dark spots, and longer beards of fur hanging from its cheeks. It is also a specialist. While the Eurasian lynx hunts deer across Europe and Asia, the Iberian lynx lives almost entirely on rabbits in the Mediterranean scrub of Spain and Portugal. That close link to a single prey animal explains both its near extinction and its recovery. Today the Iberian lynx is the great symbol of Spanish wildlife and a flagship for the whole Mediterranean forest.
What does the Iberian lynx look like?
At first glance the Iberian lynx can look like a big, long legged house cat, but several features set it apart. Adults usually measure 85 to 110 centimeters from nose to rump, with a short tail of about 12 to 30 centimeters, and stand about 60 centimeters at the shoulder. They weigh around 8 to 16 kilograms, and males are clearly heavier than females, often around 13 kilograms against about 9 or 10 for females. The coat is tawny or grayish yellow and covered in bold black or dark brown spots, more striking than the pattern of the Eurasian lynx. Spot patterns differ from one lynx to another, so researchers use camera trap photos to identify individuals, almost like fingerprints. The short tail always ends in a solid black tip. The ears end in long black tufts, and the cheeks carry a wide ruff of long white and black fur that looks like a beard, which grows longer with age. The legs are long, especially the hind legs, giving it a high, agile silhouette that helps it move through dense scrub and rush at rabbits over short distances. Its paws are smaller than those of northern lynx, since it does not need to walk on deep snow.
Where does the Iberian lynx live?
The Iberian lynx lives only in Spain and Portugal. The IUCN lists it as resident in mainland Spain and as reintroduced in mainland Portugal, from sea level up to about 1,400 meters. Its habitat is the Mediterranean landscape of the southwest of the peninsula: dense scrub of mastic, rockrose and strawberry tree mixed with holm oak and cork oak woodland, open dehesa pastures and rocky hills, always with plenty of rabbits. It needs thick cover to rest and hunt, and hollow trees, rock crevices or dense thickets for its dens. In 2002 it survived only in Doñana and in the eastern Sierra Morena around Andújar and Cardeña. Thanks to reintroductions, the 2025 census found lynx in many more places. Castilla La Mancha now has the most, 1,051, with groups in the Montes de Toledo, the eastern Sierra Morena and Campos de Hellín. Andalusia has 885, in Andújar, Doñana, Guadalmellato, Guarrizas and Sierra Arana, and Extremadura has 302, in the Matachel valley and the Ortiga river area. Portugal has 394 in the Guadiana valley near Mértola, and there are small new groups in the highlands of Lorca in Murcia and, since recently, in the Cerrato area of Palencia in Castilla y León.
What does the Iberian lynx eat?
Few predators are as specialized as the Iberian lynx. European rabbits make up around 80 to 90 percent of its diet, and in many places even more. An adult needs about one rabbit a day, and a mother raising kittens needs around three. When rabbits are plentiful it also takes partridges, ducks, young deer, rodents and other small animals, but these are extras, not a real replacement. This dependence on one prey proved disastrous in the twentieth century. Myxomatosis arrived in Spain in the 1950s and killed most rabbits, and rabbit hemorrhagic disease, which appeared in 1988, caused a second crash. A new form of the virus that spread from 2011 hit rabbits again. With fewer rabbits, the lynx could not raise enough young, and its range shrank to two tiny pockets. That is why rabbit recovery is at the heart of every lynx project. Managers plant crops for rabbits, build artificial warrens, release rabbits, control disease and choose release sites only where rabbit numbers are high enough. In return, the lynx helps the whole ecosystem: by killing foxes and Egyptian mongooses, which also hunt rabbits, it can leave more rabbits for itself and for eagles.
How does the Iberian lynx hunt and live?
The Iberian lynx is a solitary cat. Each adult holds a territory that it marks with urine, droppings left in visible spots and scratches on trees, and it defends it from rivals of the same sex. A male's territory usually overlaps those of one or two females. Territories are small for a lynx, often around 10 to 20 square kilometers, because good rabbit areas are rich in food, but they grow where rabbits are scarce. The lynx is most active at dawn, at dusk and at night, matching the hours when rabbits leave their burrows, and in summer it rests through the hot middle of the day in shade. It hunts mostly by stalking. It moves slowly and silently through the scrub, freezes, and then rushes over a few meters to grab the rabbit. It also waits motionless near warrens and paths, sometimes for a long time, ready to pounce. It can climb trees well and sometimes rests on low branches or rocks to look around. Adults meet only during the mating season in winter, and young lynx leave their mother's area in their first or second year, sometimes travelling more than 100 kilometers to find a territory of their own, which exposes them to roads.
How do Iberian lynx raise their kittens?
Iberian lynx mate in winter, mostly in January and February, the time of year when they are easiest to see in places like the Sierra de Andújar. After a pregnancy of about two months, usually 63 to 73 days, the female gives birth in March or April in a den hidden in a hollow tree, among rocks or in thick scrub. A litter usually has 2 or 3 kittens, sometimes 1 or 4. They are born blind and weigh around 200 grams. The mother raises them alone and often moves them to new dens during their first weeks. At about one to two months old, Iberian lynx kittens go through a famous phase of violent fights with each other, which in captivity have sometimes ended with the death of a sibling. Scientists think these fights help settle who is strongest. The kittens start eating meat at about a month old and are weaned at around ten weeks, and in the wild often only about two survive to that point. From then on they follow their mother as she hunts and learn to catch rabbits. They become independent at about 7 to 10 months but may stay in her territory until their second year. Females can breed from about two or three years old.
How many Iberian lynx are left?
The official census of 2025, coordinated by the Spanish environment ministry with the regions and Portugal and published in June 2026, counted 2,663 Iberian lynx, a record and almost 11 percent more than the year before. Of them, 2,269 lived in Spain and 394 in Portugal. The total included 1,711 adults and subadults and 952 kittens born that year, and there were 542 breeding females, 72 more than in 2024. This is an extraordinary change. In 2002 a survey found fewer than 100 lynx in the wild, in just two isolated groups in Doñana and the eastern Sierra Morena, and the species was the most endangered cat in the world. A captive breeding program began with centers such as El Acebuche in Doñana, La Olivilla in Jaén, Zarza de Granadilla in Cáceres and Silves in Portugal. Releases started in 2009 and 2010 and created new populations in Andalusia, Castilla La Mancha, Extremadura, Portugal and Murcia. The population has more than doubled since 2020. Even so, experts estimate that the lynx needs around 4,500 to 6,000 animals, with at least 1,100 breeding females, to reach a favorable conservation status, so the work is not finished.
Is the Iberian lynx still endangered?
The Iberian lynx is still threatened, but it is no longer Endangered. The IUCN listed it as Critically Endangered in 2002, moved it to Endangered in 2015 and to Vulnerable in its latest assessment, made in October 2023 and published in 2024. The IUCN counts 648 mature individuals in seven locations, with an increasing trend. Its Green Status, which measures recovery, rates it as Largely Depleted, at 22 percent of a fully recovered state. Why is the Iberian lynx endangered? The main historical causes were the collapse of rabbits through disease, the loss and splitting of Mediterranean scrub, hunting and trapping, and poison. Today the biggest killer is traffic. In 2025 the census recorded 273 lynx deaths, and 212 of them, almost 78 percent, were on roads and railways. Wildlife underpasses, fencing and speed limits have been built in hot spots, but deaths grow as the population spreads. Disease is another risk: in 2007 an outbreak of feline leukemia from domestic cats killed several lynx in Doñana. Poaching and illegal traps have declined but not disappeared. Spain, Portugal and the European Union have funded the recovery for more than twenty years through several LIFE projects.
