All cats have long tails, so why is the lynx’s tail so short?

There are four members of the genus Lynx: the Eurasian lynx, the Canadian lynx, the Iberian lynx, and the bobcat, all of which have short tails and are noticeably shorter than all other species in the genus. cat family. For example, with a body length of about 90 cm, the leopard’s tail is 80 cm long, while the Canadian lynx is only 10 cm long, which is unreasonably short for its massive body.

Uses of cat’s tail

Why is the lynx’s tail so short? To answer this question, we must first find out what is the purpose and use of a cat’s tail?

Many people believe that the cat’s tail is related to climbing trees. The more cats climb trees, the longer their tails, the better their climbing skills.

In fact, from the point of view of science, this is wrong. Cats climb trees mainly by limbs with sharp claws, so having a long or short tail will not affect climbing trees.

In the cat family, with the exception of cheetahs (the claws are relatively blunt and cannot be fully retracted), lions and tigers (which do not easily climb trees due to their weight), other felines are are basically tree climbers.

The lynx is no exception. Scientists have discovered that adult lynx often climb trees over 20 meters high just to sleep on them.

In fact, the real role of a cat’s tail is to maintain balance. Therefore, the more feline species need to maintain their balance, the longer their tails will be.

The most typical example can be mentioned 3 species of clouded leopard (cloud leopard), clouded cat (cloud cat) and Margay spotted cat (also known locally as long-tailed tiger cat), they often move quickly, run and jump. on the branches and accordingly their tails are very long.

In particular, cloud cats have a body length of half a meter, but their tails are more than one and a half meters long (tail length > body length), cloud leopards have a body length of one meter and a tail length of 80 centimeters (length tail length = 80% of body length). The long-tailed tiger cat has a body length of 55 cm and a tail length of 40 cm (tail length = 70% of body length).

In addition, snow leopards and Andes mountain cats are also species that often move on craggy cliffs, balance is also very important for them, so their tails are also long. The snow leopard has a body length of more than one meter and a tail length of 90 cm (tail length = 80% of body length), the Andes mountain cat has a body length of 60 cm, a tail length of 40 cm (length tail = body length × 67%).

Big cats often hunt ungulates, like cheetahs, mountain lions and tigers, and they also have long tails for balance at high speeds, especially when making sharp turns. . But they are not as long as climbing cats, and their tails are usually only slightly more than half the length of their body.

Why is the lynx’s tail short?

As mentioned earlier, the tail section mainly acts as a balance bar. Although the lynx is also good at climbing trees, the difference between it and the clouded leopard is that the lynx mainly only climbs up and down, so needing a long tail to maintain balance in the tree is not particularly important.

Another function of the long tail is to maintain balance during high-speed hunting. But for the lynx, its main prey is the rabbit, the rabbit is smaller than the lynx, very flexible and can dodge attacks very well, but the lynx does not hunt rabbits in a pursuit based on speed. Instead, the lynx relies heavily on ambushes and performs a series of swoops and jumps to capture rabbits. Moreover, the lynx usually only chases its prey for about 20 meters. If not caught, they will abandon their prey and look for other opportunities.

So for lynx, it’s important to help them hunt and survive is hearing, the ability to jump, so we can see that lynx always have a pair of long ears, on top of the ears. They have “antennas”, their legs are also quite long compared to their body proportions and their thigh muscles are also well developed.

The ability to balance is not too important for lynx, so owning a long tail is completely unnecessary, it is possible that their ancestors once had long tails like other species of the cat family, but according to Over time, it has degraded because it has no effect.

In addition, there are two other species of cats with long ears, long legs, and short tails, the Caracal caracal and the Serval. They rely on hearing to detect prey and rely on jumping to catch prey. Similarly, their tails are also degenerated like lynx.

According to scientific observation, the short tail of modern cats is always accompanied by long hind legs, and some breeds of domestic cats with short tails also tend to have longer hind legs than other cat breeds.

Therefore, scientists have guessed that the gene that shortens the tail of the cat family has a certain relationship with the gene that lengthens the hind legs. The short tail in Caracal caracal and Serval species is probably just a “side effect” of lengthening their hind legs and increasing their strength.

In 2016, scientists at Peking University discovered that at least three genes can cause cats to have shorter tails. But what causes the hind legs to develop at the same time, so far, we have not discovered.

In general, why the lynx’s tail is so short is still an unsolved issue.