Where Does the Canada Lynx Live: Using Common Names to Determine the Native Land of Various Animals

In a PREVIOUS POST, we started looking at different Latin and Greek roots, and how you can sometimes use these to tell a little about an animal, just by looking at its scientific name.  Today, we are going to learn an even more helpful skill: how to tell where some animals live, just by looking at their common name!

This can be a bit of a tough concept, so let's look at a few easier examples to start out.  First off, meet the lynx.  There are three species of lynx alive today, Lynx lynx, L. canadensis, and L. pardinus.  First off, let's look at Lynx lynx, commonly called the Eurasian lynx.  Let's try to figure out where this animal is from by breaking down its name.  Let's first try the "lynx" part of the name.  Can you think of anywhere in the world called "lynx?"  Neither can I, so let's try the first part of the name, "Eurasian."  Can you think of a place called "Eurasian?"  Although maybe not by that exact name, the word "Eurasian" is actually formed from combining the words "Europe" and "Asia," and is a term commonly used in biology, as there is not really a distinct geographic barrier that separates these two continents, as there is between, say, Asia and Australia.  So using this knowledge, where do you think the Eurasian lynx might live?

If you guessed Europe and Asia, then you were exactly right, as you can see in the range map of the Eurasian lynx below!  If you are still having a little trouble with this, go ahead and review the first paragraph before continuing on, and see if you can figure out why you got this question wrong.

Next, let's look at L. canadensis, commonly called the Canada lynx.  We've already established that "lynx" doesn't seem to refer to a place on Earth, so let's look at the "Canada" part of the name.  A quick Internet search comes up with an exotic country by the same name, "Canada."  Let's make a hypothesis about where the Canada lynx makes its home.

If you guessed "Canada," then you are spot on again, as you can see in the range map of the Canada lynx below!  Again, if you are still having some trouble, go ahead and review before you move on again.

Now, the third lynx, L. pardinus, is actually pretty tough.  Called the "Iberian lynx," this Critically Endangered cat is native to only a small bit of the "Iberian Peninsula," in Spain and Portugal.  I knew you guys weren't ready for this one yet, so that's why I skipped it.  Don't worry, you will have another shot at a tough one like this later.

There are actually four members of the genus Lynx, but we've only talked about three so far.  What about the fourth?  And can you tell where all animals live, just by using their common name?  You actually can't always tell, as we can see with Lynx rufus, commonly called the bobcat.  If you break down the name "bobcat" into its component parts, "bo" and "bcat," you can see that neither part of the name refers to a specific place in the world.

I know I'm moving pretty fast, so feel free to hang back for a minute or two if you need a moment for a breather, to recuperate.  Meanwhile, let's take a look at a few more examples.  First off, where do you think the recently discovered Omani owl is from?

As many of you guessed, the country of Oman is exactly right!  Although researchers aren't positive that this is a new owl as scientists haven't been able to closely examine a specimen, initial investigations indicate that this might be a brand new species of owl!

Let's look at the four living members of the penguin genus Spheniscus, Spheniscus mendiculus, S. magellanicus, S. humboldti, and S. demersus.  The first, S. mendiculus, is often called the Galápagos penguin.  Do you think it is named after the Galápagos Islands?  (For those of you who don't know where the Galápagos are, you can consult the map below the picture of the Galápagos penguin.)

Exactly right!  The Galápagos penguins is indeed found in the Galápagos!  The next two, S. magellanicus and S. humboldti, (the Magellanic and Humboldt penguins) aren't actually named for where they live: they are named for famous explorers!

A picture of a Humboldt penguin that I took at the Denver Zoo.

Finally, the African penguin, S. demersus.  You guys have got this by now, I think: where is the African penguin from?

A huddle of African penguins, also at the Denver Zoo.

You guys are getting so good at this, I don't think I need to do any more examples!  I do want to point out real fast that you always need to keep in mind whether the common name of these animals references a place on the globe, or something else.  For example the name of the great-horned owl doesn't refer to the fact that it lives in a place called "great-horn."  It merely refers to the fact that the owl appears to have two little horns on its head!

A picture of the great-horned owl that Anne Price and the folks at the Raptor Education Foundation bring to the raptor shows at the Best Western Denver Southwest dinosaur hotel!

And finally, just like the name of the great-horned owl, the name of the red-tailed hawk doesn't mean that the hawk is from "red-tail," it simply refers to the fact that the hawk has a red tail!

You guys sure did great: now go out there and try and make some new friends by telling them all of your new knowledge!

Eyes on Ears and Mouth on Toes

Despite the clever if misleading title, we will not be talking about mouths on toes today (although many creatures such as butterflies can taste with their feet).  I just said that to make it sound like the line from the classic song "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" by Bob Dylan.  Instead, we are going to be talking about eyes on ears: eyespots, at least!

A picture of one of the Amur tigers at the Denver Zoo.  See those white bars surrounded by dark fur on the ears of the cat?  Those are the topic of today's discussion.

On the cover of the August/September issue of the National Wildlife magazine, there was a picture of a drinking bobcat, its ears folded back in the posture that some refer to as "airplane ears."  On both of its ears were two white bars that made the ears look a lot like eyes.  I never really paid attention to this pattern on the coat, but once my friend Aidan Cook pointed it out, it got the proverbial gears going.  I remembered that servals also had the eyespot-like patterns as well, but did other cats?  Turns out a lot of them do, with just a few shared throughout the post.  Notice how defined the eyespot is in both the bobcat (top) and the serval, below.

To learn more, I consulted my "Wild Cats of the World" book by Mel and Fiona Sunquist.  The authors state that many cats have this pattern on their ears, "almost as many species" have the ear eyespots that are "poorly defined or absent."  One of the many examples that they include is the lion.  As you can see in the pictures below, lions do have this pattern to a certain degree, but nowhere near as derived as in the serval or the bobcat.  Below we have pictures of a young adult male lion, two of females, and one of a cub, and you can see that none of them have a very well defined eyespot.

Mountain lions also generally don't have it as well defined.  It seems like some mountain lions really don't have that much black on their ears at all, and some have a higher degree of black and white.  Presumably, whatever the function the eyespot serves in other species, it is not as important for the mountain lion, and natural selection therefore does not favor it highly one way or another.

It's a little tough to tell in the picture below, but the sand cat is another one of those cats that has a poorly defined eyespot.

Cheetahs also don't have terribly well defined eyespots.

Yet another cat that does not have very well defined eyespots, the ever fantastic Pallas cat!

I thought I had read somewhere that the eyespots served to help communicate between individuals when they were hunting.  This doesn't make that much sense, though, because most cats are solitary individuals, with the main exception being lions, and we already noted that their eyespots are not quite as specialized.  The Sunquists state in their book that the exact function of the eyespots is unknown, although some scientists believe that they serve as a "follow me" signal to their young, which "may be especially important in low-light conditions."  I assumed that this might mean that the young cats wouldn't have the eyespots, but this is clearly not true, as you can see the photograph of Sochi, the new male Amur leopard cub at the Denver Zoo.  There, you can see that Sochi (named after the Russian city that is holding this years Olympics) also has the ear spots.  So while this doesn't necessarily support the idea of a "follow me" signal to the young, it doesn't really not support it either: it's just something interesting that I wanted to point out.

We already talked about how tigers have a pretty well developed eyespot, but here are two more pictures of tigers to drive the point home.

I can't remember for certain if the picture below was a bobcat or a lynx, but I am pretty certain it is a bobcat, looking at the size of the feet.  (Lynx spend a lot more time in the snow, and therefore have larger feet, a snowshoe-like adaptation to keep them from sinking in.)  This cat, one of many at the Wild Animal Sanctuary, seems to have much smaller feet in proportion to the rest of the body.  Regardless, you can see the well defined eyespots.

The snow leopard, one of my favorite cats, has well defined eyespots as well, which you can kind of see in both of these pictures.

Photo Credit: Masaki Kleinkopf 

The fishing cat is another cat that has these well defined eyespots.

And finally, the Canadian lynx, much like its bobcat relative, also has pretty well defined eyespots!

Works Cited:

Animal Spotlight: The Bobcat

First of all, remember, if you like what you are reading, hit the "follow" or the "subscribe" button below!"

The bobcat is one of three main felines that lives in North America, the others being the Canadian lynx and the mountain lion.  (Although other cats, like the jaguar, jaguarundi and ocelot, do occasionally make it up to Texas and Mexico, generally they just live in Central and South America).  Labeled "Least Concern" by the IUCN, the bobcat averages around three feet in length, and is named such for the short, "bobbed" tail.

A bobcat at The Living Desert in Palm Desert, California.  Note the short, stubby tail.

The bobcat is quite adaptable; it inhabits almost every single environment that the Continental United States has to offer, as well as most of Mexico.  There are thirteen recognized sub-species of bobcat.  Furthermore, despite its size, can be strong enough to take down small deer.  Here is a link to a video about a bobcat that I found to be quite interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5BfNtim148

When we went camping last week, twice did we see paw prints that looked too small to be mountain lion prints, and were most likely bobcat prints.  I was quite excited; unfortunately (but not surprisingly) we didn't see any of the cats themselves.  Here is one picture from each of the times we saw the tracks. 

East Palm Desert on Dwellable

Propleopus, the Carnivorous Kangaroo

Imagine you are on a safari to the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya.  If you timed your visit right, then the Mara is inundated with wildebeest and zebra, as well as numerous other herbivores.  You will probably see a number of carnivores as well: cheetahs, leopards, lions, and especially hyenas.  What you probably don’t realize is that most places aren’t like this.  The Masai Mara has one of the highest predator populations seen in Africa, due in large to the great number of prey animals available for a meal.  Regardless, you are forced to acknowledge that there are a great many more prey animals than there are animals to prey upon them. 

                This is known as the predator/prey ratio, and it can be seen all over the world, and can also be seen in the past.  While hundreds, sometimes thousands, of fossils of a single herbivorous dinosaur can be discovered, it is far more rare to unearth the remains of a predatory dinosaur.  But why is there this unbalance between predators and their prey?  Well, let’s take a look at a continuous, cyclical event that takes place in a period of 9.6 years in the wilderness of Canada, that should be able to shed some light on the situation.

                At the beginning of the almost-ten year cycle, we see a sharp increase in the number of hares.  When food is plentiful, these hares often produce two to three litters of around 12 leverets (baby hare) each.  After their numbers reach their limit, their population density reaches around eight hare per football field.  At this time, the hares have eaten all of the edible material they can reach.  Not only are they out of food, but the plants that they feed upon begin to create bitter chemicals in their leaves and edible parts, that keep the hare from digesting the plant material very efficiently. 

                While the hare population is flourishing so, the hare’s predators find an especially easy time of it.  Owls, wolves, and foxes all flourish, but one predator does particularly well: the Canadian lynx.  Hares consist between 40 and 85 percent of the average lynx’s diet, and they generally kill two hares every three days.  With such an explosion in hare numbers, all of these predators flourish, successfully raising more owlets, kits, and cubs.  However, shortly after the plants begin to release the anti-digestion chemicals, the hare populations tank.  With not enough food, many of the animals die off.  Then, a year or two after the hare die-off, the lynx also experiences a massive fall in numbers.  With the lynx no longer over hunting the hare, and the predator/prey ratio returned to normal, the hare starts the cycle all over again. 

                While this cycle seems to be a healthy part of the Canadian ecosystem, in other places, a rapid rise in the number of predators or prey could be disastrous.  Therefore, nature has made it so that, in a healthy ecosystem, the prey animals vastly outnumber the predatory animals.  But how does all of this tie into kangaroos?  We will get back to that in a minute.  First, let’s take a look at an extinct, 26,000 year old relative of today’s rat kangaroo. 

                First described by Australian zoologist Charles De Vis around the turn of the century, the holotype of Propleopus at first remained unique.  It wasn’t until the year 1967 that more remains belonging to the genus Propleopus appeared.  More was discovered in the following years, but very few remains have been discovered even to this day.  With millions of fossilized mammalian bones discovered in Australia, Propleopus are “known from teeth and jaws attributable to less than 20 individuals.” 

                There are multiple reasons why an animal does not appear with a great amount of frequency in the fossil record.  Perhaps it is because the animal was small; smaller bones are much more delicate, and therefore less likely to survive the fossilization process.  (They are also a lot smaller, and therefore usually harder to find then, say the humerus of an Brachiosaurus!)  Perhaps the animal lived in an environment where fossilization is unlikely.  For example, in millions of years, when intelligent life again evolves on this planet, or we are visited by intelligent life from elsewhere in the galaxy, they would find very little or no evidence of mountainous animals, like bighorn sheep or the snow leopard.  This is because mountains are in a constant state of geologic flux.  At times they are being pushed up; but even when they are rising, they are already eroding.  Given enough time, entire mountain ranges can disappear, or almost disappear, like in the Australian Outback.  Sometimes, it is because paleontologists are simply looking in the wrong places, and there are treasure troves of these animals just waiting to be discovered elsewhere.  It could also be because the rocks where the animal was deposited simply don’t exist anymore, something that is called an unconformity in geologist’s terms.  Maybe the animal was just not very successful, and went extinct after only a short amount of time.  The fossilized animal could also represent a transitional fossil, so creatures with those characteristics would have only been around for a few thousand years.  Or, of course, it could be because the animal was a predator, and there were fewer individuals to begin with.

                Now you are probably thinking that this is quite a leap.  Just because this kangaroo didn’t appear all that often in the fossil record doesn’t necessarily mean that it was carnivorous.  And you are right, as if this was the only evidence of Propleopus being a carnivorous kangaroo, I would be laughed right out of the Neolithic Age: and they, at best, had only a very, very primitive form of language, and probably would, at best, barely understand what I was saying.  However, there is more evidence in favor of a carnivorous Propleopus.  As I am fond of saying, “the teeth tell the tale.” 

                Studies of the dentition of Propleopus show a close resemblance to small, extant insectivores or omnivores, i.e. the mountain pygmy possum and the musky rat kangaroo.  Where the teeth of Propleopus differ from the mountain pygmy possum and the musky rat kangaroo, however, the differences “could be interpreted as adaptations to meat-eating.”  To sum up, the incisors are short, stout, and appear great for stabbing, the premolars are strongly serrated, which is perfect for tearing into very tough stuff (perhaps tendon), and the molars are greatly reduced in size, as sometimes seen in the genus Wakaleo, one of the genera of marsupial lion, like Thylacoleo.  Furthermore, the molars, although reduced in size, share similar features to the largest extant marsupial carnivore today, the Tasmanian devil.  These features in the Tasmanian devil serve to keep bone splinters from penetrating the gums, and clearly would not be needed to serve that purpose in an herbivore. 

                The most revealing tale of the teeth can only be revealed by a microscope.  Studies have shown that, when you compare the microscopic wear patterns on the teeth of a herbivore and a carnivore, you can see obvious, and distinguishable, differences.  The teeth tell the tale of the diet of an animal, and help to show us what Propleopus might have eaten.  When compared with the wear patterns of closely related herbivores, like the musky rat kangaroo, and marsupial and placental carnivores, like the thylacine, Thylacoleo, and dogs, the wear patterns seen on Propleopus resembles that of the carnivores more so than that of the herbivores. 

                So was Propleopus a carnivore, or a herbivore, or both?  One hypothesis that has been put forward is that Propleopus was situated in a similar ecological niche as the modern day African baboon, eating whatever came it way, be it plants, eggs, insects, or meat.  Whatever the answer, is is doubtful that it could be answered now, and it is likely that only further research, and more discoveries, will ever hope to unravel the mystery surrounding Propleopus, the seemingly killer kangaroo.