A supposed lynx was spotted at the downhill training site at Vancouver.
Um, it’s not a lynx
It’s a bobcat.
Bobcats and Eurasian lynx have spots.
Canada lynx do not.
Canada lynx. No dark spots.
They are silvery gray and very long-legged.
Most people have never seen either species, even though bobcats are very widespread and relatively common throughout the US and Canada.
They are really good at avoiding us.
There’s a bobcat and her cub who love patrolling the fence line at the sanctuary. They are utterly appalled if/when they catch sight/smell of us ogling humans. She’s almost completely brown, though I think I can discern some spotting near her bum…but I can’t get within 20′ of her for a better look. She’s superbly beautiful and lithe. Her cub, less so. :)
They have very good reason to avoid us.
Their pelts were in demand for a very long time. In my part of the country, they were very rare until the latter half of the twentieth century.
Technically they are lynxes, because they are in the genus Lynx, but bobcats and Canada lynx are not interchangeable.
One of them is a generalist. The other almost exclusively lives on snowshoe hares.
So she’s a generalist – do u think she’s going to enter tri-athlon there?
I’ve never been able to comprehend why people have such a difficult time identifying basic species. Lions and tigers aren’t the same thing. Neither are sharks and whales. I was watching a pair of caracals at a zoo recently when a woman waddled up with her screaming spawn and told them to “look at that cute hyena!” despite the signs.
Is it really that difficult, people? You can tell the difference between colors and shapes, by not species?
Bobcats are so pretty. We have a very prolific family of them at my grandparents’ farm!
There is a LOT of variation among bobcats and spotting/markings–this one(YES! This photo actually came through! Often, alas Retrieverman, this !@#$%^&*()(*&^%$#@! computer won’t let me see your photos and/or videos)is beautifully marked! Interesting thing involving interactions between Canada Lynx and Bobcats–the usually smaller bobcats tend to be MUCH feistier, and will usually dominate or drive out Canada Lynx in their territories. In captivity, Lynx tend to be MUCH tamer and more handalable, too. And boy howdy, Sarah, being a zookeeper myself, I hear inaccurate comments(some so ridiculous they are HILARIOUS!) from visitors all the time. And you have to be VERY CAREFUL in correcting them–some people really take offense! Our 2 cougars get called bobcats, jaguars, tigers, lions(well, they are Mountain lions, at least!); but not limited to just feline misidentification. Believe this or not, I have several times heard people calling them KANGAROOS! One zoo I worked at had Prairie Dogs–that was back when “The Lion King” first came out, and I CONSTANTLY heard our Prairie Dogs being called “Meerkats”(which before “The Lion King”, hardly anyone knew what a meerkat was!)–drove me nearly bonkers(which is understandable if you realize I could hear this repeated HUNDREDS of times in a day!). Then I got another job at a zoo that had an actual Meerkat colony, which I had a blast taking care of. But wouldn’t you know it, everybody called them “Prairie Dogs!” I finally had to be restrained in a straight jacket…..L.B.
This is actually a “bobsled cat”
[…] of these recently popped up at the downhill training ground at the Vancouver Olympics. It was unfortunately misidentified as a Canada […]
i tink that Lion King should also be considered as one the best animated films on the market .