Bobcat

Name and taxonomy

Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber described the species in 1777 under the name Felis rufa. The Latin word rufus means red, and it probably refers to the reddish tone of many coats. Other English names include wildcat, bay lynx and red lynx. Spanish speakers call it lince rojo or gato montés, and the Ojibwe name is gidagaa-bizhiw.

Naturalists named a dozen more forms between 1817 and 1963, from Florida, Nova Scotia, California and southern Mexico. A review in 1981 questioned those forms, because the differences between regions were small. The 2017 revision of cat taxonomy kept only two subspecies. Lynx rufus rufus lives east of the Great Plains, and Lynx rufus fasciatus lives west of them.

Evolution and relatives

The genus Lynx belongs to a group that also holds Puma, Prionailurus and Felis, and that group dates to 7.15 million years ago. Lynx itself split away about 3.24 million years ago. Scientists think the bobcat descends from the Eurasian lynx, which crossed the Bering land bridge during the Pleistocene. The first ancestors may have arrived 2.6 million years ago, and bobcat fossils appear from about 1.8 million years ago.

Ice sheets cut the first wave of lynxes off in the south, and that population became the modern bobcat around 20,000 years ago. A second wave from Asia settled in the north and became the Canada lynx. The two species still meet along the border, and they sometimes hybridise. Dry periods between glaciations probably split the eastern and western bobcat populations.

Appearance

The bobcat looks like its lynx relatives, but on average it is the smallest of the four. The coat runs from tan to greyish brown, streaked black along the body and barred dark on the legs and tail. Desert bobcats in the south-west wear the palest coats, and northern forest animals wear the darkest. The lips, chin and belly are off-white. Long hair below the ears forms ruffs, so the face looks wide. The ears are pointed, tipped in black, and carry short black tufts.

Head and body measure 65 to 105 centimetres, and the tail adds 11 to 19 cm. The cat stands 45 to 58 cm at the shoulder. Adults weigh 4 to 15 kilograms, and the heaviest verified individual weighed 22.2 kg. Males run larger than females: 6.4 to 18.3 kg against 4 to 15.3 kg. As Bergmann's rule predicts, bobcats grow larger in the north and in open country. The biggest animals come from northern New England and eastern Canada, and the smallest from the southern Appalachians.

The eyes are yellow with slit pupils, and the nose is pinkish red. Skeletal muscle makes up 58.5% of the body weight. A few black, or melanistic, bobcats have been caught in Florida and New Brunswick, and their spots still show faintly.

Habitat and range

Bobcats prefer woodland, whether broadleaf, conifer or mixed, but they do not need deep forest. They live in the swamps of Florida, the deserts of Texas and rugged mountain country. Farmland suits them when it holds rocky ledges, swamps or patches of trees. Prey supply matters most, followed by shelter from weather, den sites and dense cover for hunting. Only large tracts of intensive farmland exclude the species.

The historical range ran from southern Canada, across the whole United States, to Oaxaca in Mexico. During the 20th century the cat lost ground in the Midwest and the north-east, mainly to modern farming. By 2010 it had returned to every state of the lower 48 except Delaware. In Mexico it lives in dry scrub and in pine and oak forest, and its range stops at the tropical south. GBIF holds records from 10 countries, but that count includes zoos and escaped animals.

Deep snow sets the northern limit. The bobcat lacks the wide padded feet of the Canada lynx, so it sinks where the lynx walks on top. Where the two meet in Nova Scotia, the more aggressive bobcat has pushed the lynx out. Forest clearing for farms has also moved the lynx north, to the bobcat's advantage.

Diet and hunting

The bobcat is a strict meat eater. It prefers mammals of about 0.7 to 6 kilograms, and rabbits and hares sit at the top of the list. Cottontails dominate the menu in the east, and the snowshoe hare takes over in the north. In the far south, cotton rats often replace rabbits as the staple. Unlike the specialist Canada lynx, the bobcat switches prey when its favourite runs short.

The cat hunts by stalking, or by waiting in cover until a victim comes close. For a rabbit or a goose it creeps to within 6 to 11 metres before the final rush. It grabs with its retractable claws and kills with a bite to the neck. Birds up to the size of a trumpeter swan are taken on the nest, along with eggs and chicks. The list runs on: squirrels, mice, muskrats, skunks, raccoons, foxes, small sharks and insects.

In winter, or where deer are plentiful, a bobcat will kill a deer or a pronghorn. In the Everglades 33 of 39 recorded kills were fawns, and in Yellowstone 15 of 20 were elk calves. A bobcat can bring down prey up to eight times its own weight. After a large kill it eats its fill, hides the carcass under snow or leaves, and returns to it later. It can go a long time without food, and it feeds heavily when prey is abundant.

Behaviour and social life

The bobcat is crepuscular: it moves from about three hours before sunset to around midnight, and again around dawn. Each night it travels 3 to 11 kilometres along a familiar route. In autumn and winter it becomes more active by day, because its prey does the same in cold weather. Like most cats it lives alone, and it meets others mainly to mate.

Each adult keeps a home range and marks it with urine, faeces, gland scent and claw marks on trees. Range sizes vary enormously, from 0.596 to 326 square kilometres. In one Kansas study resident males held about 21 km2, and females held less than half of that. Wandering animals without a fixed range covered about 57 km2. A male's range overlaps those of several females, but female ranges rarely overlap each other. Where ranges overlap, a dominance order forms and keeps transients out of the best areas.

Within its range the cat keeps a main den and several backup shelters: hollow logs, brush piles, thickets or rock ledges. The den smells strongly of its owner. A bobcat climbs well and swims when it must, but it normally avoids water. When a dog chases it, it usually goes up a tree. Density averages about one cat per 13 square kilometres.

Communication and senses

Bobcats rarely call outside the breeding season. During courtship they scream, yowl and hiss. North Carolina wildlife staff describe a range of sounds, from a soft mew or purr to a scream that sounds human. Most communication is by scent: urine, faeces and gland secretions tell neighbours who owns a range. Claw marks on prominent trees add a visual signal.

Like all cats, the bobcat has sharp eyesight, keen hearing and a good sense of smell. Its pupils open wide at night to gather light. The ear tufts probably help the cat pinpoint sounds, as in other lynxes.

Reproduction and life cycle

Most bobcats first breed in their second summer, though some females breed in their first year. Males produce sperm from September or October and stay fertile into the summer. Most mating happens in February and March. A dominant male travels with a receptive female and mates with her several times. Other males may watch, but they do not join in. Both sexes take several partners in a season, so the system resembles that of the domestic cat.

The female cycles every 44 days, and she is receptive for five to ten days. In Texas, animals without a home range produced no known kittens. After about 60 to 70 days of gestation she gives birth in a small cave or a hollow log. Litters run from one to six, usually two to four, and most arrive in April or May. A second litter is sometimes born as late as September.

The mother raises the kittens alone. They open their eyes at nine or ten days, start to explore at four weeks, and take solid food from about two months. She brings them meat, and she teaches them to hunt. By three to five months they travel with her, and by autumn they hunt for themselves. Most disperse at about eight months, but some in Michigan stayed with their mother until the next spring. A wild bobcat lives about 7 to 10 years, and the oldest wild animal on record reached 16. In captivity one bobcat lived to 32.

Predators and threats

An adult bobcat has few enemies. Cougars and grey wolves kill adults in Yellowstone, and coyotes kill both adults and kittens. Alligators have been filmed taking adult bobcats in the south-east, and golden eagles reportedly take them too. Kittens fall to great horned owls, eagles, foxes, bears and adult male bobcats. When prey is scarce, fewer kittens survive, and cannibalism has been recorded on rare occasions.

Disease, accidents, hunters, cars and starvation cause most other deaths. Young animals die at a high rate soon after they leave their mother. One study of 15 bobcats found an average yearly survival of 0.62. Ticks, fleas and internal parasites are common. One survey found 52% of bobcats infected with Toxoplasma gondii, with big regional differences. Parasites and disease may kill more bobcats than starvation, accidents and predators together.

Population and conservation

The IUCN lists the bobcat as Least Concern, because it is widespread and abundant. The US Fish and Wildlife Service estimated 700,000 to 1,500,000 bobcats in the United States in 1988. Numbers have probably grown since then, because both the range and the density have increased. Canada and Mexico hold stable populations, though data from southern Mexico are thin. CITES Appendix II covers the species, so fur exports are monitored, and the United States has asked for its removal.

The picture varies by state. Ohio, Indiana and New Jersey list the bobcat as endangered. Illinois removed it from the threatened list in 1999, and Iowa did the same in 2003. Pennsylvania banned hunting from 1970 to 1999 and now allows a limited season. In the Everglades, sightings fell by 87.5% between 2003 and 2011, and biologists blame the invasive Burmese python.

Regulated hunting accounts for half of the deaths in some populations, mostly in winter. Around cities, roads and housing split the habitat into patches, which cuts gene flow between groups. In California, rat poison reaches bobcats through poisoned rodents, and the weakened cats then die of severe mange. Conservationists ask for connected open space and for traps instead of poison.

Relationship with humans

People have hunted and trapped the bobcat for its fur and for sport for centuries. Fur prices rose sharply in the 1970s and 1980s, then fell by the early 1990s. The cat still takes poultry, and small livestock such as sheep, goats and pigs. In 2004 bobcats killed 11,100 sheep in the United States, which was 4.9% of sheep lost to predators. Some of that blame is misplaced, because bobcats also scavenge kills made by other animals.

Bobcats now live at the urban edge across much of the south-east. One was caught in a Houston parking garage in 2010, and another on a tourist boat in Pittsburgh in 2018. Residents rarely see them, because the cats keep out of sight. Attacks on people are rare, and a bobcat normally runs or climbs when it meets a person. The few recorded attacks probably came from sick or cornered animals.

In culture and myth

Bobcat stories appear in many Indigenous cultures of North America. The Nez Perce tell of the bobcat and the coyote as opposite beings, though another version makes them equals. Claude Lévi-Strauss saw the opposed twins as a theme that runs through New World myth. In a Shawnee tale a rabbit tricks the bobcat into lighting a fire, and the scattered embers leave its spots. The Mohave believed that dreaming of the cougar and the lynx brought a hunter great skill.

Zuni hunters kept stone bobcat fetishes and linked the animal with the south and the colour red. Pawnee parents wrapped babies in bobcat fur, because the cat was tied to the stars. Along the Illinois River, the Hopewell culture buried a young bobcat with a collar of bone pendants and shell beads. It is the only decorated burial of a wild cat known to archaeology, and it may have been a pet. Ohio University's mascot, Rufus the Bobcat, honours both the animal and the founder Rufus Putnam.