Description
Lynx have dense winter coats, and their large feet, padded with thick fur, let them run atop deep snow. A large portion of their diet consists of snowshoe hares, which are similarly equipped to run on snow. Lynx hunt mostly at dawn and dusk. They are solitary, and maintain nonexclusive territories. The ranges of females overlap more than the ranges of males. Adults scent-mark their territories by urinating and defecating on logs, stumps, and bushes along their travel routes. The chemistry of their urine changes seasonally and this generates different signals, attracting mates during breeding season and repelling other Lynx at other times.
Links:
Mammal Species of the World
Links:
Mammal Species of the World
- Original description: In Linnaeus, C. (translated and revised by R. Kerr), 1792. The animal kingdom; or, zoological system of the celebrated Sir Charles Linnaeus. Class I. Mammalia and Class II. Birds. Being a translation of that part of the Systema Naturae, as lately published with great improvements by Professor Gmelin, together with numerous additions from more recent zoological writers and illustrated with copperplates, 1:157. J. Murray, London, 644 pp.
