Whats the difference? I thought they were the same

lynx are a little bigger has a shorter tail
longer ear tassles and facial trim

Hey bakes,

Check this out...



I found it on this site, which has some good pictures, discriptions, natural histories etc...

Wisconsin Dept of Natural Resources


Cheers,
Canuck

Lynx are also a hell of a lot smarter than bobcats! LoL

In all honesty they also like different habitats and prey as well.

The lynx is a creature of the heavy forest and doesn't take to human pressure well. He lives mainly on a diet of snowshoe hares and in fact the lynx numbers cycle in time with the population cycles of the hares.

The bobcat on the other hand does as well in farmland as in the forest and will eat nearly anything it can catch. It's numbers stay fairly stable year to year.

Are bobcats found as far north as lynx? Would they be the same species but the lynx growing bigger to cope with the colder north?

Bobcat and lynx overlap significantly in their range. Definitely not the same species, despite their similarities.

Cheers,
Canuck

The only place where you can hunt cougar, lynx and bobcat is in the southern half of BC (not the south western zone around Vancouver). Bobcats are not found as far North as lynx. Lynx basically live north of the US-Canada border, with a population along the Rockies that is listed on the US ESA list. They are different subspecies: lynx lynx, and lynx rufus (from memory).

Check out http://www.hww.ca/hww2.asp?id=84

Frans

Frans,

They are definitely different species under the same genus. Lynx canadensis vs Lynx rufus.

Here are a couple more good links...

Felids of Wisconsin

Lynx info from wildcatconservation.com

Bobcat info from wildcatconservation.com

Cheers,
Canuck

A couple of photos may help.

Here is a lynx:
http://www.exzooberance.com/virtual%20zoo/they%20walk/lynx/Lynx%20485059.jpg

And here is a bobcat:
http://sunsite.tus.ac.jp/multimed/pics/animals/bobcat.gif

Besides being smaller, you can see the difference in the ear tufts of the lynx, the check tufts of the bobcat.

Except for a few small population groups in the rockies, the lynx basically doesn't exist much south of the Canadian - US border.

Pete

I have recently become interested in hunting a lynx. I guess i thought of it as a rare species, and that it might someday be illegal to hunt it if it becomes endagered. From recent posts by you folks, that fear has been removed, it really sounds like there is plenty of them.

Anybody know about hunting lynx in Alaska? legeal or illegal? Outfitters?

Just gonna through out another long shot question here. At one time on the internet i had found a picture of a huge lynx pouncing onto a bighorn ram, (another one of my favorites!). Not sure if the pic was authentic or faked but it was neat! I would think bighorns would be about the top end of the lynxs capabilites? I can since not find it back. Wondering if anybody else had seen that pic and remembered the web address?? Like i said, it is a long shot!

quote:

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At one time on the internet i had found a picture of a huge lynx pouncing onto a bighorn ram

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That was not a Canada lynx it was a bobcat in CA taking down a desert bighorn ewe and yes the pictures are real.

I've trapped and shot bobcats in CA, AZ and OR and the desert cats get pretty big, I've had to make oversize stretchers for some of them.

Here's the story and pics of the cat and sheep.

Bobcat taking down bighorn sheep ewe pic

Thanks Skinner,
Thats the pic i remember. Obviously not to well, i thought it was a lynx and a ram, but oh well. I just thougt that was amazing!