Range: Common throughout much of the United States and Mexico. Found throughout the Southwest. [Illustration: Habitat map] Habitat: This common species is found in all zones wherever there is sufficient cover to hide it. Description: A bobcat distinguished from the lynx by having small ear tufts, a more rufous color, and a black band which crosses only the upper surface of the tail tip. Total length 30 to 35 inches. Tail 5 inches. Weight 15 to 30 pounds. This is a chunky animal with long, muscular legs and large feet. The sides of the face are heavily streaked with black, backs of ears dark, coat generally tawny to rufous above, underparts lighter. Dark spots rather prominent throughout coat, insides of front legs often barred with darker color. Young from two to six, usually born in early spring; only one litter per year. These are the most common wild members of the cat family in the Southwest. Their distribution over the United States takes a strange pattern, inasmuch as they are not found in several of the midwestern and southeastern States, and in a large area in central Mexico. In all there are a dozen subspecies of _Lynx rufus_ in North America. They are tough little predators, among the last to retreat before the advance of civilization. In fact, they may often be found on the very fringes of our larger cities, existing on the rats that infest the city dump. In the wilder areas, which are the bobcat’s appropriate home, its tracks are distinguishable from those of the larger _Felidae_ only by their smaller size. Like the larger members of the cat family, it is equipped with a set of strong retractile and extremely sharp claws. Although there are five toes on each front foot and only four on the hind feet, the tracks of both feet are similar. This is because the fifth toe, corresponding to our thumb, is so high on the inside of the foreleg that normally it does not touch the ground. During normal travel the claws are always in the retracted position and never show in the tracks. All native cats have a tendency to place the hind feet in the tracks left by the front feet, so that in effect each track is a double print. This may be one of the reasons a cat’s approach is so silent! [Illustration: bobcat]