Bobcat, Red Lynx
Lynx rufus fasciatus
Bobcats are elusive and fascinating creatures, often misidentified as mountain lions, coyotes, or domestic cats. The bobbed tail and tufted ears are distinctive identifying features. A bobcat’s secretive nature makes it unlikely you’ll see one at Edgewood, but if you look closely, you may well see its scat or tracks on the trails.
Appearance
Bobcats are larger than house cats with a heavier body and longer legs. Their coat is tan to orange-brown, with brown to black spots, and with black bars on their legs and rear. Their underparts and the inside of their legs are white. The face is wide and flat; black lines radiate onto the facial ruff (fur extending around the face). The ears are pointed and slightly tufted, with a black backside. The short tail is black above and pale below. The Western bobcats found in California weigh between 13 and 25 pounds and are generally 20 to 41 inches long.
ID Tips
At Edgewood, bobcats are sometimes confused with mountain lions, coyotes, foxes, or even domestic cats or dogs when seen at a distance. The “tell” is their “bobbed” tail. A bobcat’s 2 to 6 inch-long tail is less than one quarter of its body length, while a mountain lion’s 2 to 3 foot-long tail can be one third to one half of its body length. Coyotes and foxes have long, narrow noses and pointier ears than bobcats.
Unlike coyote or dog tracks, bobcat tracks typically don’t include toenail prints. In a clear track, you can see that the front 2 toes are offset from each other, and the pad has a pronounced “M” shape. This guide to distinguishing tracks from cougar, coyote, and bobcat may be helpful.
Look for bobcats’ uniformly segmented scat in a scrape (a shallow depression) on or near the trail, often near rocks. If you look closely at their scat, you may find fur, small bones, and even insects. Their scat may be difficult to distinguish from the scat of coyotes, foxes, and mountain lions. Watch this bobcat scrape some leaves then place a generous marker for other animals to find and smell.
– Click photo to play video
At Edgewood
Protected open spaces like Edgewood provide the space and resources bobcats need to live and raise their young. These camera-trap videos and images show bobcats in action at Edgewood: hunting, eating, drinking, relaxing, socializing, and raising curious kittens. Like some domestic cats, they even eat grass, and sometimes might have a hairball!
Check out iNaturalist for more observations of Western bobcats at Edgewood.
The bobcats seen at Edgewood are the subspecies fasciatus, which is the subspecies found west of the Great Plains. Other than by location, our sources do not clearly differentiate the subspecies, so the information on this page pertains to the species as a whole.
Habitat and Range
Bobcats are generalists in habitat, preferring dense cover and uneven terrain with high prey density. The bobcat is widely distributed in North America, ranging from British Columbia to Mexico, and to all the contiguous United States, although sightings are extremely rare in some states.
Diet
Bobcats are strictly carnivores, specializing in rabbits and hares, which can make up to 90% of their diet. The rest of their diet usually consists of gophers, voles, woodrats, mice, squirrels, birds, lizards, and fawns. They occasionally eat small domesticated animals.
They stalk their prey, then pounce, and kill with a bite to the vertebrae of the neck.
Lifecycle
Bobcats are not monogamous: both males and females can have multiple mating partners. Bobcats typically mate in February to March, and give birth to 2-3 blind and helpless kittens around May. Kittens nurse for 2 to 3 months, and start eating prey at about 2 months of age. Female bobcats bring meat to their young and teach them how to hunt after they’re weaned. The kittens stay with the mother for almost a year, until the next breeding season. Male bobcats do not help raise their offspring. The bobcat’s average lifespan is 7 years, and few live more than 10 years.
Behavior
Bobcats are solitary animals. Adults come together only briefly to mate, and afterward the male leaves; the female alone raises the kittens until weaning. Although generally quiet, bobcats may yowl, hiss, or growl during the breeding season.
Bobcats maintain individual territories marked with urine, feces (poop), and anal gland secretions. Territory size can vary widely, but males hold large home ranges that can average around 15 square miles—about 20 times the size of Edgewood—and may overlap with several females and sometimes another male. Female ranges are smaller and generally do not overlap with other females.
At Edgewood, bobcats can be difficult to see. The preserve is much smaller than the territory a bobcat typically uses, and these cats are crepuscular—most active at dawn and dusk—so they often move through the area when few people are around. They make their dens in sheltered spots such as rock piles, caves, or hollow logs, and they tend to avoid busy places, especially where roads and human activity diminish quiet habitat. Even so, visitors occasionally glimpse a bobcat moving through the preserve in full daylight.
Name Derivation
- Lynx – from the Greek lúnx and Proto-Indo-European lewk, “white, light, bright,” referring to the cat’s glowing eyes and ability to see in the dark
- rufus – Latin for “red, reddish”
- fasciatus – Latin for “banded”
- Bobcat – from its short tail, which appears “bobbed” or cut off
Fun Fact
What happened to the tail? They just don’t need a long tail. As described in A Californian’s Guide to the Mammals Among Us: “Tails are handy for balance when climbing trees (which they do, but not regularly) and for using as a rudder in hard braking (like a cheetah), but in thickets and scrubland they just get in the way. Similarly, mid-sized cats like Africa’s caracal and serval also have abbreviated tails, as do the world’s other three lynx species – Canadian lynx, Eurasian lynx, and Spain’s endangered Iberian lynx.” (Hood, 2019)
Learn More
Cat Specialist Group. 2024. Bobcat: Lynx rufus. IUCN/SSC. International Union for Conservation of Nature, Species Survival Commission.
Kelly, M., Morin, D. & Lopez-Gonzalez, C.A. 2016. Lynx rufus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Wild Cat Family. Bobcat (Lynx rufus) classification. Lynx Lineage.
References
Alden, P. 1998. National Audubon Society Field Guide to California. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Ciszek, D. 2002. Lynx rufus. ADW: Animal Diversity Web. Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan.
Feldhamer, G. 2003. Wild Mammals of North America: Biology, Management, and Conservation.The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland.
Hood, C. 2019. A Californian’s Guide to the Mammals Among Us. Heyday, Berkeley, California.
Sunquist, F. 2014. The Wild Cat Book: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Cats. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.