Lynx
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50 free Lynx trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
A lynx is easy to recognize and hard to find. These medium-sized wild cats keep to themselves in woods, mountains and scrub across North America, Europe and Asia, and most people who share a landscape with one never see more than its tracks. This quiz turns the best fun facts about lynx into questions. It covers every living species, from the bobcat of North America to the Iberian lynx of Spain: how the cats cope with winter, what goes on the menu, how mothers raise kittens, which animals hunt the hunters, and how people have pulled some populations back from the brink. A few questions follow the lynx into the night sky, old legends and the names of teams and gadgets. It is written for curious kids, parents, teachers and wildlife fans. Every answer comes with a quick explanation, so even a wrong guess leaves you with something new to share.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The wide, furry paws of the Canada lynx are often compared to which piece of winter gear?
Snowshoes
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.
Q 02Ancient writers believed which lynx product hardened into a precious gemstone called lyngurium?
Its urine
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.
Q 03The bobcat, the smallest of the four lynx species, is named after which feature of its body?
Its short tail
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.
Q 04An 87.5% fall in bobcat sightings in Florida's Everglades has been blamed on which invasive snake?
Burmese python
The Burmese python preys on the cats themselves, and the fall in sightings was measured between 2003 and 2011.
Q 05Black bars on the ruff of fur under a lynx's neck are said to resemble which item of clothing?
A bow tie
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.
Q 06Johannes Hevelius named a faint constellation Lynx because spotting it supposedly takes what?
Sharp eyesight
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.
Q 07The Iberian lynx of Spain relies on which animal for about three-quarters of its food?
Rabbits
Rabbits matter so much to this cat that an adult male needs about one a day, and a mother raising kittens eats three.
Q 08Which astronomer joined Rome's Academy of the Lynxes in 1611 and added 'Linceo' to his signature?
Galileo Galilei
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.
Q 09Which feature, about 4 cm long on a Canada lynx, grows from the tips of every lynx's ears?
Tufts of hair
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.
Q 10Canada lynx numbers rise and fall roughly once a decade, following the supply of which prey?
Hares
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.
Q 11Apart from mothers with kittens, adult lynx of all four species usually live and hunt how?
Alone
Alone is the rule, yet daughters of the Canada lynx often settle near their mothers and stay in touch with them for life.
Q 12A bobcat being chased by a dog will usually escape danger by doing what?
Climbing a tree
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.
Q 13Which main enemy of the Eurasian lynx makes the cat scarce wherever that predator is abundant?
Gray wolf
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.
Q 21Fur records kept since the 1730s by which fur traders reveal the Canada lynx's boom-and-bust cycle?
Hudson's Bay Company
Ledgers of the Hudson's Bay Company show the swings clearly: numbers of the cats can vary three- to seventeen-fold.
Q 22Which naturalist first gave the Eurasian lynx a scientific name, Felis lynx, in his Systema Naturae?
Carl Linnaeus
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.
Q 23One Canada lynx was recorded swimming two miles across which great river of the far northwest?
Yukon
Q 14Why do the claws of a bobcat leave no marks in its four-toed tracks?
They are retractable
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.
Q 15The bobcat ranges from southern Canada through the United States as far south as which country?
Mexico
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.
Q 16Eurasian lynx remains have been found in the stomachs of which bigger cat in part of their range?
Siberian tiger
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.
Q 17Fossils show lynx once lived in which Asian island nation, dying out there in prehistoric times?
Japan
Japan had lynx across its islands during the prehistoric Jomon period, but no trace of the cats has been found from any later age.
Q 18In 2025 a camera in Jaén, Spain, took the first photos of an Iberian lynx with fur of which color?
White
White fur had been recorded on the species only once before. The pale cat was photographed on 22 October 2025.
Q 19Which US state's WNBA team has been called the Lynx since its first season in 1999?
Minnesota
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.
Q 20The Eurasian lynx, largest of the four lynx species, prefers hoofed prey, most often which animal?
Roe deer
Roe deer are the favorite wherever they are common. In Estonia a single adult lynx kills about 60 of them a year.
The Yukon crossing, recorded in one account, shows how well these cats swim. They are agile climbers as well.
Q 24Ancestors of the bobcat and Canada lynx reached North America from Asia by which Ice Age route?
Bering Land Bridge
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.
Q 25Which cat is nicknamed the desert lynx or Persian lynx, though it belongs to a different genus?
Caracal
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.
Q 26By 2002 only 94 Iberian lynx survived, all of them in which southern region of Spain?
Andalusia
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.
Q 27What kills more Iberian lynx than any other cause, claiming 144 of the cats during 2023?
Road accidents
Road accidents cause the majority of deaths, as the cats try to cross busy highways. Back in 2014 the toll was 21.
Q 28From 1999, Canada lynx were released in the San Juan Mountains to restore them to which US state?
Colorado
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.
Q 29The Canada lynx lives mainly in which kind of dense woodland stretching across Canada and Alaska?
Boreal forest
Boreal forest suits the cat so well that it avoids open ground even where prey is plentiful, and it struggles in heavily logged areas.
Q 30With numbers above 2,000, the Iberian lynx moved in 2024 from Endangered to which Red List category?
Vulnerable
Vulnerable is the next step down in risk from Endangered. As recently as 2001 the count of mature adults stood at just 62.