Animal Wednesday #63

It's time for a big, beautiful cat from Europe and a little bit from Asia - Eurasian lynx.

Eurasian lynx

The Eurasian lynx has a relatively short, reddish or brown coat that is marked with black spots; their number and pattern are highly variable. The underparts, neck and chin are whitish. The fur is more brightly coloured with more numerous spots in animals living at the southern end of its range. In winter, it is much thicker and varies from silver-grey to greyish brown. Some animals have dark brown stripes on the forehead and back. It has powerful, relatively long legs, with large webbed and furred paws that act like snowshoes. It also has a short "bobbed" tail with an all-black tip, black tufts of hair on its ears, and a long grey-and-white ruff.

It is the largest of the four lynx species, ranging in body length from 76–106 cm (30–42 in) in males; 73–99 cm (29–39 in) in females; and standing 55–75 cm (22–30 in) at the shoulder. The tail is 11–24.5 cm (4.3–9.6 in) long, constituting a total length of up to 130 cm (51 in) in the largest males. Weights of both sexes in Russia range from 12 to 32 kg (26 to 71 lb), but more than 30 kg (66 lb) is attained very rarely and is possibly exaggerated. A Eurasian lynx from the Altai Mountains weighed 35 kg (77 lb). Those inhabiting Fennoscandia and westwards are considerably smaller, with a range of just 7–26 kg (15–57 lb), though individuals in the Carpathian Mountains may rival those in the Altai in size.

Although they may hunt during the day when food is scarce, the Eurasian lynx is mainly nocturnal or crepuscular, and spends the day sleeping in dense thickets or other places of concealment. It lives solitarily as an adult. The hunting area of Eurasian lynx can be anything from 20 to 450 km2 (7.7 to 173.7 sq mi), depending on the local availability of prey. Males tend to hunt over much larger areas than females, which tend to occupy exclusive, rather than overlapping, hunting ranges. The Eurasian lynx can travel up to 20 km (12 mi) during one night, although about half this distance is more typical. They patrol regularly throughout all parts of their hunting range, using scent marks to indicate their presence to other individuals. As with other cats, its scent marks may consist of faeces, urine, or scrape marks, with the former often being left in prominent locations along the boundary of the hunting territory. Eurasian lynx makes a range of vocalizations, but is generally silent outside of the breeding season. They have been observed to mew, hiss, growl, and purr, and, like domestic cats, will "chatter" at prey that is just out of reach. Mating calls are much louder, consisting of deep growls in the male, and loud "meow-like" sounds in the female. Eurasian lynx are secretive, and because the sounds they make are very quiet and seldom heard, their presence in an area may go unnoticed for years. Remnants of prey or tracks on snow are usually observed long before the animal is seen.

Eurasian lynx in Europe prey largely on small to fairly large sized mammals and birds. Among the recorded prey items for the species are hares, rabbits, marmots, squirrels, dormice, other rodents, mustelids (such as martens), grouse, red foxes, wild boar, chamois, young moose, roe deer, red deer, reindeer and other ungulates. In keeping with its larger size, the Eurasian lynx is the only lynx species to preferentially take ungulates (the Iberian