50 Fun Facts About Lynx

The wide, furry paws of the Canada lynx are often compared to which piece of winter gear?

Snowshoes spread a walker's weight, and these paws do the same: they splay 10 cm wide and hold almost twice the weight a bobcat's can before sinking.

Ancient writers believed which lynx product hardened into a precious gemstone called lyngurium?

Its urine was said to set into a stone that the cat then buried out of spite. The gems people actually dug up were probably pieces of yellow amber.

The bobcat, the smallest of the four lynx species, is named after which feature of its body?

Its short tail looks bobbed, as if cut off, and that gave the cat its name. The stub is only 9 to 20 cm long, with a black tip.

An 87.5% fall in bobcat sightings in Florida's Everglades has been blamed on which invasive snake?

The Burmese python preys on the cats themselves, and the fall in sightings was measured between 2003 and 2011.

Black bars on the ruff of fur under a lynx's neck are said to resemble which item of clothing?

A bow tie is the usual comparison, though the bars are often hidden from view. On a Canada lynx the cheek fur grows longer in winter, so the ruff looks fuller.

Johannes Hevelius named a faint constellation Lynx because spotting it supposedly takes what?

Sharp eyesight was the lynx's great legend: old tales said the cat could see through solid objects. Hevelius built his constellation from 19 dim stars.

The Iberian lynx of Spain relies on which animal for about three-quarters of its food?

Rabbits matter so much to this cat that an adult male needs about one a day, and a mother raising kittens eats three.

Which astronomer joined Rome's Academy of the Lynxes in 1611 and added 'Linceo' to his signature?

Galileo Galilei signed himself 'Linceo', the lynx-like one, from then on. Founded in 1603, the academy is among the oldest scientific societies in the world.

Which feature, about 4 cm long on a Canada lynx, grows from the tips of every lynx's ears?

Tufts of hair, always black, crown the ears of all four species. The bobcat's are the shortest, which is one way to tell it from its northern cousin.

Canada lynx numbers rise and fall roughly once a decade, following the supply of which prey?

Hares make up as much as 97% of the cat's diet. When they crash, lynx raise fewer kittens and may roam more than 1,000 km in search of food.

Apart from mothers with kittens, adult lynx of all four species usually live and hunt how?

Alone is the rule, yet daughters of the Canada lynx often settle near their mothers and stay in touch with them for life.

A bobcat being chased by a dog will usually escape danger by doing what?

Climbing a tree is the usual escape, and bobcats are excellent at it. Swimming is a last resort: they can do it but normally avoid water.

Which main enemy of the Eurasian lynx makes the cat scarce wherever that predator is abundant?

The gray wolf will kill and eat a lynx that cannot get away, so the cats thin out or switch to smaller prey where wolves hunt.

Why do the claws of a bobcat leave no marks in its four-toed tracks?

They are retractable, so the claws stay sheathed while the cat walks. Its tracks are still easy to tell from a house cat's: they are about half as big again.

The bobcat ranges from southern Canada through the United States as far south as which country?

Mexico marks the southern limit: bobcats reach the state of Oaxaca, living in dry scrub and pine-oak woods, but stop where the tropics begin.

Eurasian lynx remains have been found in the stomachs of which bigger cat in part of their range?

The Siberian tiger hunts lynx in the Russian Far East, as its stomach contents have shown. In the Altai Mountains the smaller cats also keep well away from wolverines.

Fossils show lynx once lived in which Asian island nation, dying out there in prehistoric times?

Japan had lynx across its islands during the prehistoric Jomon period, but no trace of the cats has been found from any later age.

In 2025 a camera in Jaén, Spain, took the first photos of an Iberian lynx with fur of which color?

White fur had been recorded on the species only once before. The pale cat was photographed on 22 October 2025.

Which US state's WNBA team has been called the Lynx since its first season in 1999?

Minnesota's Lynx are the sister team of the NBA's Timberwolves. The team is based in Minneapolis and won its first league title in 2011.

The Eurasian lynx, largest of the four lynx species, prefers hoofed prey, most often which animal?

Roe deer are the favorite wherever they are common. In Estonia a single adult lynx kills about 60 of them a year.

Fur records kept since the 1730s by which fur traders reveal the Canada lynx's boom-and-bust cycle?

Ledgers of the Hudson's Bay Company show the swings clearly: numbers of the cats can vary three- to seventeen-fold.

Which naturalist first gave the Eurasian lynx a scientific name, Felis lynx, in his Systema Naturae?

Carl Linnaeus placed it in Felis, the genus of small cats, in 1758. As late as the early 2000s, scientists still argued over whether lynx deserved a genus of their own.

One Canada lynx was recorded swimming two miles across which great river of the far northwest?

The Yukon crossing, recorded in one account, shows how well these cats swim. They are agile climbers as well.

Ancestors of the bobcat and Canada lynx reached North America from Asia by which Ice Age route?

The Bering Land Bridge was crossed twice: an early wave became the bobcat in the south, and a later one, within the last 200,000 years, became the Canada lynx.

Which cat is nicknamed the desert lynx or Persian lynx, though it belongs to a different genus?

The caracal has an unmarked coat, while true lynx are spotted and blotched. The animal the ancient Greeks and Romans called a lynx was most probably this one.

By 2002 only 94 Iberian lynx survived, all of them in which southern region of Spain?

Andalusia held the last two groups, which were cut off from each other. Breeding centers and releases have since lifted the total above 2,000.

What kills more Iberian lynx than any other cause, claiming 144 of the cats during 2023?

Road accidents cause the majority of deaths, as the cats try to cross busy highways. Back in 2014 the toll was 21.

From 1999, Canada lynx were released in the San Juan Mountains to restore them to which US state?

Colorado had lost its lynx in the 1970s. After an 11-year effort, the released cats were breeding across the south-central Rockies of the state.

The Canada lynx lives mainly in which kind of dense woodland stretching across Canada and Alaska?

Boreal forest suits the cat so well that it avoids open ground even where prey is plentiful, and it struggles in heavily logged areas.

With numbers above 2,000, the Iberian lynx moved in 2024 from Endangered to which Red List category?

Vulnerable is the next step down in risk from Endangered. As recently as 2001 the count of mature adults stood at just 62.

The long canine teeth of a Canada lynx are heavily laced with what?

Nerves run thickly through the canines, so the cat can feel exactly where it is biting. Wide gaps beside those teeth let the bite sink as deep as possible into the prey.

Why does the back of a Canada lynx slope downward from its hips toward its shoulders?

Longer hind legs tilt the whole body forward, and the bobcat is built the same way. The long limbs help the cat move and hunt in deep snow.

Like a pet cat, a Eurasian lynx may make which sound at prey that is just out of reach?

A chatter joins the mews, hisses, growls and purrs it has been heard to make. Outside the breeding season the cat is so quiet that it can live in an area unnoticed for years.

The word lynx is often traced to an ancient root meaning 'light', after which feature of the cat?

Its glowing eyes are the usual explanation, though some linguists doubt the link. The word reached English through Latin from the ancient Greek name for the cat.

The Atari Lynx of 1989 was the first handheld games console to come with which feature?

A color screen set it apart from Nintendo's monochrome Game Boy, released five months earlier. The Lynx began life at the games firm Epyx as the Handy.

Lynx were illegally released in January 2025 in the Cairngorms National Park of which country?

Scotland lost its own lynx centuries ago. The freed cats were caught near Kingussie by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and taken to the Highland Wildlife Park.

Like all cats, a walking bobcat 'directly registers', meaning each hind paw usually lands where?

In its front prints is where each hind foot falls, exactly on top. Walking tracks sit roughly 20 to 45 cm apart.

In 2018 a wild bobcat was captured in downtown Pittsburgh after turning up aboard what?

A tourist boat was where the cat turned up, in a region where bobcats were once thought to have vanished. In 2010 another was caught in a parking garage in downtown Houston.

In a Shawnee tale, the bobcat got its dark spots when a clever captive scattered what over its fur?

Hot embers singed the spots into its coat. The cat had its dinner cornered, then let itself be talked into lighting a fire.

The Issoire lynx, ancestor of all four living lynx species, is thought to have arisen in which region?

Africa is the likely cradle, and the cat soon spread into Eurasia. The extinct species is named after the town of Issoire, where its first fossils were found.

In northern Maine, which member of the weasel family proved to be the leading killer of Canada lynx?

The fisher caused more lynx deaths than anything else during a twelve-year study, yet the cats' numbers did not seem to suffer.

Which disease of the Iberian lynx's main prey helped push the cat to the edge of extinction?

Myxomatosis and a later haemorrhagic virus wiped out much of the cat's food supply in the 20th century, and it never switched to other prey.

A young bobcat buried in an Illinois mound by the ancient Hopewell culture was wearing which item?

A beaded collar of shell and bone suggests a cherished pet. The skeleton was first taken for a puppy's, because the Hopewell normally buried their dogs.

Mishipeshu, a water spirit whose name means 'Great Lynx', belongs to the stories of which people?

The Ojibwe held the Great Lynx to be master of all water creatures. Its home was said to be Michipicoten Island in Lake Superior.

Risnjak National Park, thought to be named after the local word for lynx, lies in which country?

Croatia calls the cat 'ris'. Hunted out of the area in the 19th century, lynx returned to Risnjak after a release across the border in 1973.

A release of 80 Canada lynx between 1989 and 1992 failed to restore the cats to which mountains?

The Adirondacks effort failed as the cats scattered as far as New Jersey, Quebec and New Brunswick, and eight were shot by hunters who mistook them for bobcats.

Saliega, caught as a kitten in 2002, became the first Iberian lynx to do what three years later?

Breed in captivity she did: three healthy kittens arrived on 29 March 2005, and breeding centers have since supplied cats for release.

Which Spanish national park of dunes and marshes sheltered one of the last Iberian lynx groups?

Doñana kept a small group alive near the coast, cut off for so long that those cats became heavily inbred.

A darker-coated Canada lynx, once classed as a separate subspecies, lives on which Canadian island?

Newfoundland's lynx split from the mainland cats some 20,000 to 33,000 years ago, after the last Ice Age, but are no longer counted as a subspecies.

The bobcat's two recognized subspecies live on either side of which broad North American region?

The Great Plains probably split the cats during warm spells of the Ice Age, when the grasslands grew too dry for them.