All cats have long tails, so why does the lynx have such a short tail?

They are all cats, so why do other cats have long tails while lynx tail is so short?

There are four members of the genus Lynx: Eurasian lynx, Canadian lynx, Iberian lynx and bobcat. They all have short tails, which are obviously much shorter than those of all other cats. For example, with a body length of about 90 cm, the clouded leopard’s tail is 80 cm long, while the Canadian lynx is only 10 cm long, which is almost comically short compared to its huge body.

The use of cat’s tail

Why is the lynx’s tail so short? To answer this question, we must first understand what the cat’s tail is used for.

Let me dispel a rumor first. Many people believe that the cat’s tail is related to tree climbing. The more trees a cat climbs, the longer its tail will be. And the longer the tail, the better its tree climbing technique.

This is wrong. Cats climb trees mainly by relying on their sharp claws and the strength of their limbs, and a short tail does not affect their climbing ability.

Among the cat family, except for the cheetah whose claws cannot be fully retracted into the sheath and are relatively blunt, and lions and tigers which find it difficult to climb trees due to their weight, other cats are basically experts at climbing trees.

The short-tailed lynx is actually an expert tree climber. Scientists have found that it often climbs trees more than 20 meters high and sometimes even sleeps on them.

In fact, the real function of a cat’s tail is to maintain body balance. Therefore, cats that need to maintain balance have longer tails.

Long tail in cat family

First, there are three arboreal cats, the clouded leopard, the clouded cat and the long-tailed ocelot. They often jump around on tree branches and have particularly long tails.

Especially the clouded leopard, its body length is half a meter, and its tail is more than half a meter long. The tail is longer than the body, making it the cat with the longest tail in proportion (tail length > body length).

The clouded leopard has a body length of one meter and a tail length of 80 centimeters (clouded leopard: tail length = body length × 80%).

The long-tailed ocelot has a body length of 55 cm and a tail length of 40 cm (tail length = body length × 70%).

Secondly, there are two types of rock-climbing cats, the snow leopard and the Andean mountain cat. They often move on cliffs, so maintaining balance is also important, and they also have long tails.

Like the snow leopard, the body length is one meter and one centimeter, and the tail length is 90 centimeters (tail length = body length × 80%).

The Andean mountain cat has a body length of 60 cm and a tail length of 40 cm (tail length = body length × 67%).

In addition, those large cats that often need to hunt ungulates, such as cheetahs, mountain lions, and tigers, also have long tails , because they need a long tail to maintain balance when running at high speed, especially when turning sharply. But they don’t need to be as long as arboreal and climbing cats, and their tails are usually only slightly longer than half of the body.

Why do lynxes have short tails?

As mentioned earlier, the tail mainly serves as a balance bar. Although lynxes are also good at climbing trees, the difference between them and clouded leopards is that lynxes mainly climb up and down, unlike clouded leopards, which often move sideways on branches. Therefore, for lynxes, keeping balance on trees is not particularly important.

Another function of the long tail is to keep balance when chasing prey at high speed. But for lynx, its main prey is rabbit , which is very small in size compared to lynx, and is very flexible and good at dodging, so lynx can’t catch it just by running fast.

Therefore, lynxes mainly rely on a series of pounces and jumps to catch rabbits . If they miss once, they will pounce a few more times. Generally, they can catch their prey after 10 pounces and chasing for about 20 meters. If they still can’t catch it, the lynx will have to give up.

Therefore, what is important for the lynx is hearing and jumping ability, so it has a pair of long ears with antennas on the tips of the ears; it also has long legs, and its thigh muscles are very developed.

The ability to balance is not that important, so the long tail is not very useful and thus it has degenerated.

Some people say that the reason lynxes have short tails is because they eat too much rabbits, and they resemble whatever they eat. Although this is a joke, the reason lynxes have short tails may really be related to eating rabbits. There is an obvious trend that the more rabbits they eat, the shorter their tails become.

Canada lynx

The Canada lynx, which eats only rabbits, has a shorter tail and longer hind legs than the other three species of lynx, which have a more diverse diet and also catch small deer in addition to rabbits.

The tail of the other three lynx species is one-fifth of their body length, while the tail of the Canada lynx is only one-tenth of its body length.

In addition, there are two other cats with long ears, long legs and short tails, namely caracal and serval . The same is true for caracal and serval, which also feed on rabbits, mice and other prey that are very small and flexible relative to themselves. They rely on hearing to find prey and rely on jumping to catch prey. Similarly, their tails have also degenerated.

The above are some of my personal speculations based on the existing data, but it seems that it is not enough to explain why the lynx’s tail has become so short, because according to the above analysis, although a longer tail is not very useful to the lynx, it does not seem to have any harm.

We have another conjecture about this phenomenon.

We have observed that the short tail trait of modern cats is always accompanied by long hind legs, and some short-tailed domestic cat breeds also tend to have longer hind legs.

So we speculated that perhaps the gene that shortens the cat’s tail is related to the gene that lengthens the hind legs , and the shortening of the lynx and caracal’s tail is just a byproduct of their lengthening of their hind legs and enhancing their jumping ability?

Beijing University

In 2016, scientists from Beijing University found that at least three genes can cause cats’ tails to become shorter. But we still don’t know which one will also cause the hind legs to become longer.

All in all, why the lynx’s tail has become so short is still an unsolved problem. Our team has reported our ideas to scientists at Peking University, and we believe they will be able to find a definite answer.