The Lynx: The Rarest Cat in Yellowstone

Something we at Flat Creek Inn love about Yellowstone National Park is the abundance of wildlife. What makes it even more special is the opportunity to see wildlife, especially large mammals, not often seen elsewhere. For example, bison are so common that they may be seen crossing roads in their herds (the best kind of traffic jam), and elk, bears, moose, coyotes, and more can be found in relative abundance. In fact, Yellowstone is home to the highest density of different mammals in the lower 48 states. But there are other mammals living in the area that are a bit more … elusive. Allow us to introduce the lynx.

The lynx is a genius consisting of four medium-sized wild cats, two of which live in North America. One of the two American cats is the bobcat. It has a short tail and is the smallest of the lynxes. Though individuals are hard to spot, its US population is estimated in the hundreds of thousands.

The other? The Canadian lynx (more commonly known as just the “lynx”). Though bobcats are difficult to spot, lynxes are even harder. The lynx is larger than the bobcat and prefers the cold. It’s a beautiful cat that grows up to two feet tall and almost four feet long (just over half a meter tall and just over a meter long). It is more easily found in the more frigid and untouched forests of Canada, but only resides in a select few US states. According to Yellowstone National Park’s website, a lynx was last seen in Yellowstone in 2010 and tracks were last seen in 2014.

There are several cool and unique features of the lynx:

• Long tufts of hair sticking out above its ears.
• Longer hind legs than front legs.
• Wide snowshoe-like paws that allow it to walk on top of snow.
• It's a specialist predator—it almost exclusively hunts the snowshoe hare. This means the population of lynxes rises and falls in about 10-year cycles that coincide with snowshoe hare populations.

With only 112 known sightings (ever) in Yellowstone National Park, will you be one of the lucky ones to spot one?

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Photo by Alexandre Daoust on Unsplash