Bobcat

Lynx

Lynx (scientific name: lynx): belongs to the cat family. It is similar to a cat but much larger than a cat. It is stout and has a very short tail. Its head is usually less than 1 / 4 of its body length. The limbs are long and strong. The tip of the ear is covered with black bristles. Long drooping hairs on cheeks. The upper body is light brown, yellowish brown, light grayish brown or maroon, or grayish white with light brown tone; the ventral surface is light white, yellowish white or sandy yellow. The tail is black. Animals under second class state protection. It looks like a wolf, also called Wolf cat.

It is a kind of cold loving animal, which is basically the product of the cold area in the north temperate zone, and also inhabits in the cold alpine zone. There are various habitats, such as desert steppe, alpine meadow and mixed forest. It is common to live in forest and shrub area, dense forest and mountain rock. He likes to live alone. He is good at climbing and swimming. He has strong hunger resistance. He can lie in one place for several days. He is not afraid of the cold. He feeds on rats and rabbits. He also feeds on small wild boars and deer. Nests are mostly built in rock crevices, stone caves or tree caves. 2-4 per litter. Widely distributed in Europe and northern Asia. It's the national beast of Romania.

morphological character

Lynx looks like a cat, but it is much bigger than a cat. It is a medium-sized beast. The average body length of lynx is 85-105 cm, the tail length is 20-31 cm and the weight is 20-30 kg. Lynx has a strong body, long limbs, short and thick tail, and blunt tail tip. The base of the ear is wide. The ear tip has black bristles, the cheeks have long drooping hairs, and the abdomen hair is also very long. The color of the back is dark, reddish brown, and the middle part is dark; the abdomen is light yellow white; the hair around the eyes is white, and the cheeks have 2-3 rows of obvious Brown Black longitudinal lines. The hair on the back is the thickest, and the body is dotted with dark spots or small stripes. These spots are good for its hiding and foraging. The color of hair on the back varied greatly, including milk gray, brown, earth yellow brown, gray grass yellow brown and light gray brown. Some parts of the tone is relatively constant, such as the upper lip dark brown or black, the lower lip dirty white to dark brown, there is a brown black spot on both sides of the jaw, the tail is generally pure black or brown, the front and outside of the limbs are striped, the chest and abdomen are consistent dirty white or milky white. Its winter hair is long and dense. In winter, its big claws are covered with long and dense hairy animal hair, moving in the thick snow, which is equivalent to providing the effect of snow boots.

On the tips of the two upright ears are long dark tufts, 4-5cm long, mixed with a few white hairs, which are very similar to the plumes on the helmet of a military general in the drama, adding a bit of dignity to them. The ear shell and the pen hair can move towards the sound source at any time, which can collect sound waves. If the pen hair is lost, its hearing will be affected.

There is little difference between male and female lynx, only in body and weight: male lynx is slightly larger than female lynx, and its weight is slightly heavier (1-2kg).

(Note: Lynx atlas website)

Habitat

Lynx is a kind of cold loving animal, which basically belongs to the product of the cold area of the north temperate zone. Even in the south of 30 degrees north latitude, it also lives in the cold alpine area, and is the northernmost cat. Habitat is very diverse, from coniferous forest in sub frigid zone, coniferous and broad-leaved mixed forest in cold temperate zone to alpine meadow, alpine grassland, alpine shrub grassland, alpine desert and semi desert. Their living height can range from a plain hundreds of meters above sea level to a plateau about 5000 meters above sea level. They live in forest and shrub areas, and are more common in dense forests and rocks. They live in caves and crevices.

Life habit

Lynx is a kind of wild animal living alone in a vast space. It is a night hunter without a fixed nest. During the day, it can lie on the rocks to bask in the sun, or in order to avoid wind and rain, quietly hide under the tree. It can not only live alone for several days in a few hectares, but also run continuously for more than ten kilometers without stopping. Good at climbing and swimming, strong hunger resistance. Can lie in a place for a few days, not afraid of cold, like to kill roe deer and other large mammals. The range of activity depends on the abundance of food, and there is a behavior of occupying area and a fixed excretion place.

Lynx is cunning and cautious. When in danger, it will quickly escape to the tree to hide. Sometimes it will lie down and pretend to die, so as to avoid the enemy's attack and injury. In nature, tigers, leopards, snow leopards and other large beasts are the natural enemies of lynx. If they encounter wolves, they will be chased, surrounded and killed, and are generally difficult to escape. Nocturnal, hidden activities, sound, visual developed, can swim.

Lynx's main food is snow rabbit and other rabbits, so in many places, the population of lynx will fluctuate with the increase or decrease of the number of rabbits, and there is a peak every 9-10 years. In addition to the hare, it hunts many other birds, including squirrels, wild mice, lemmings, marmots and Thunderbirds, quails, pigeons and pheasants, and sometimes attacks the young of musk deer, roe deer and deer, as well as domestic animals such as piglets and lambs. Lynx in the Great Xing'an Mountains of China, after catching its prey in winter, will bury the leftover meat under the snow to "refrigerate" and feed when it is hungry. Rabbits account for the majority of their diet, consuming 1-2.5 kg of meat per day. In hunting areas, lynx can control the number of rabbits, killing 10% to 40% of the local rabbit population every year. The density of hares is highly dependent on the density of lynx.

When catching prey, they often use grass, Bush, stone, big tree and so on to make shelter, lie in ambush in the place where the prey often passes by, wait, and watch the movement around with alert eyes. It has excellent endurance. It can lie quietly in one place for several days and nights. When the prey approaches, it will rush out unexpectedly and catch it. If the attack is unsuccessful, the prey will slip away. Instead of chasing the prey, it will return to its original place and wait patiently for the next chance. Sometimes it also roams quietly, and when it sees that its prey is concentrating on feeding, it stealthily sneaks close, then sneaks close again, and suddenly pounces on it, so that its prey is caught inexplicably. Lynx is also good at swimming, but not easy to get into the water. It is also an excellent rock climber and has a high ability to climb trees. It can even jump from one tree to another, so it can prey on the birds on the trees. Especially at night, when the forest is quiet and the birds living on the trees fall asleep, it will stretch out its claws to hunt for food.

Distribution range

world

Distributed in Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Italy, Kazakhstan , South Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan Karan, Uzbekistan. Regional extinction: Lichtenstein.

China

It is distributed in the mountainous areas of Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Inner Mongolia and Hebei.

Mode of reproduction

Lynx's nests are mostly built in rock caves or tree caves. They mate from February to April every year, and the gestation period is about 2 months, with 2-4 offspring per litter. The life span can reach 12-15 years. The young begin to eat solid food when they are about one month old, and generally do not leave their mother until the next year. In order to survive, the little lynx leave their mother and sometimes continue to live together for weeks or even months. The female reaches reproductive maturity at 20-24 months and the male at 30-34 months. The life span of wild lynx is about 12-15 years. It can live 24 years in captivity.

Subspecies differentiation

Population status

Lynx used to live happily in most of the forests, shrubs and rocks in Eurasia from east to west. Due to human activities, the forest area has been fragmented and shrunk, and urbanization has gradually intensified, resulting in less and less habitat and less prey. Because of the overlapping of habitat and human settlements, they sometimes have to deal with human raised livestock, so they often become the victims of ranchers.

It is roughly estimated that there may be about 70000 wild populations in China, and the population is decreasing. The risk factor is that lynx fur is one of the traditional important fur resources and export species. Before the 1970s, hunters could hunt and kill at will, and more than 1000 lynx were caught every year in the Qinghai Tibet Plateau alone; 801 lynx were caught in Heilongjiang Province from 1971 to 1981, with an average of 80 each year. Since 1980, although it has been classified as a class II national protected animal, poaching still occurs from time to time, and the local local local animal products purchasing department even still purchases the lynx fur illegally captured; it also does free trade in the agricultural markets of Tibet and other provinces. Since 1980's, after China joined the cites, the export volume has been gradually controlled. At one time, the export quota was controlled at about 1000 pieces, which was still due to the consideration of a certain amount of original inventory. At that time, almost all fur shops could see a lot of lynx skins and finished products. After that, with the decrease of stock, especially the decrease of wild population,

Chinese PinYin : Shan Mao