Bobcats are Indiana’s only resident wild cat. Mountain lions are also native to the state. However, according to the Indiana department of natural resources website, there has not been a breeding mountain lion population in Indiana since the late 1800s.
People report seeing mountain lions in Indiana occasionally. However, when these sightings are not a case of mistaken identity, they are young male cougars that originated from established breeding populations in states further to the west, such as Nebraska or South Dakota.
Further down in the article, we’ll talk about both bobcats and mountain lions in Indiana.
Bobcats in Indiana (Lynx rufus)
The American bobcat, which is also known as the red lynx, is a North American wild cat. Biologists believe that both the bobcat and the Canada lynx are descendants of the Eurasian lynx whose ancestors crossed into North America via the Bearing Sea land bridge.
Bobcats reside only in North America. Their range begins in Canada. Central British Columbia is the furthest north that bobcats live. Their range extends south through the United States and down into central Mexico. They are the most common wildcats in North America.
In 1969, Indiana’s only resident native wild cat was placed on the state-endangered species list. Loss of habitat and unregulated hunting caused their numbers to plummet.
In 2005, Indiana bobcat numbers were sufficient to take them off from state’s endangered species list. However, to date, in 2023, there is still no open season for bobcat hunting or trapping in Indiana.
Bobcat populations are concentrated heaviest in southern Indiana counties. However, in recent years, there have been bobcat sightings in almost every county in the Hoosier state. They are becoming more numerous in northern Indiana as well.
Bobcats live in a variety of terrain. Look for them in broken habitat types that might include wooded areas, dense forests, ravines, rocky ledges and/or outcroppings, and field borders.
The mottled black spots in the pattern of their fur give them excellent camouflage to live undetected in these environments.
Bobcats do not hibernate. They are active throughout the year. However, they’re rarely seen since they’re predominantly nocturnal or crepuscular animals. See
A Bobcat is generally a solitary animal. The exceptions to this generality are during mating season and when a female is raising young. They are territorial and live in home ranges that they patrol and scent mark with urine and feces.
The size of their home ranges varies with the geography and the availability of prey. However, in Indiana, male bobcat home ranges vary from 30 to 75 square miles, while female bobcat home ranges are anywhere from 6 to 12 square miles. See
It’s also important to note that male and female bobcat home ranges sometimes overlap.
How do they count bobcats in Indiana?
The Indiana Division of Natural Resources collects citizen reports of bobcats, photos from trail cameras, and bobcats that have been struck and killed by vehicles.
They also keep track of bobcat sightings through their archer’s index. The Indiana archer’s index uses reports from volunteer archery deer hunters. These reports detail the number of hours they spent in the field and what wildlife species they saw while hunting.
One more valuable resource that the IDNR utilizes to make its bobcat population estimates is Snapshot, Indiana. Snapshot, Indiana, is a volunteer-based trail camera survey designed to collect information on the populations of various species throughout the state.
What do bobcats look like?
A bobcat is much smaller than a mountain lion and slightly smaller than a Canada lynx. An average bobcat is about twice the size of a house cat.
An adult bobcat is 2 to 3 feet long and weighs about 15 to 35 pounds. A female bobcat is quite a bit smaller than a male.
These animals have a “bobbed,” short tail with dark bands on its upper surface. Their tail also has a black tip on its upper surface but not the back. They generally have reddish-brown coats that can also trend to gray, with mottled dark spots that range from black to dark brown on their sides. Additionally, they have dark stripes on their inner forelegs and a white belly.
From a side view, you will notice that a bobcat is slightly higher at the rump than at the shoulders. Bobcats and lynx have long hind legs in proportion to their forelegs.
Bobcats have black-tufted ears. In other words, they have tufts of hair that poke up above their ears that are black at the tips. They do have shorter ear tufts than their close relative, the Canada lynx.
The backs of their ears, below the black tips, are black. In the center of the black of each ear, they have a single white spot. This gives the impression of a false eye on the back of each ear.
They also have a whiskered face that seems broader due to the ruff of fur on their cheeks and their whiskers. Their eyes are yellow with round black pupils.
Bobcats aren’t adapted for deep snow.
Compared to Canada lynx, which thrive in deep snow country, bobcats struggle more in the snow due to the fact that they cannot walk on top of it like lynx can. A lynx’s large paws function like snowshoes keeping it on the snow’s surface. On the other hand, compared to lynx, bobcats have small feet that tend to sink into the snow. If the snow is too deep and powdery, it reduces their mobility along with their ability to catch prey.
This is why the bobcat range dies out in southern Canada; from there on north, Canada lynx are more prevalent and bobcats less so.
Bobcats are also unable to live at higher elevations as lynx do in the winter. In the winter, lynx are able to stay in the high country to hunt their preferred prey, snowshoe hares.
What do bobcats eat?
Despite their comparatively small size, bobcats are aggressive, tough predators. At times, particularly during the winter, they prey on animals that are much larger than they are, such as white-tailed deer. However, deer are not their go-to prey.
They feed on a variety of wild animals, but studies done in Iowa showed that 95 percent of a bobcat’s diet consists of smaller mammals such as rabbits, mice, voles, and squirrels. They are opportunistic feeders and might also feed on such animals as beavers, muskrats, porcupines, birds such as wild turkeys, reptiles, insects, and carrion. When they take up residence close to farming or urban areas, their menu might occasionally also include small agricultural animals, house pets, and feral cats.
Interestingly, they even prey on venomous snakes even though they are not immune to the venom. They accomplish this by using their quickness to pin the snake’s head down with a paw, after which they dispatch the snake with a quick bite to its spine behind the head.
Indiana’s venomous snakes include the following: See
- The Northern Copperhead (Agkistrodon Contortrix Contortrix)
- The Western Cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus leucostoma)
- The Timber Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus)
- The Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus catenatus)
What eats bobcats?
In Indiana, coyotes, domestic dogs, great horned owls, and foxes may occasionally kill young bobcats. Other than that, these felines have no real predators.
Reproduction and life cycle for bobcats
In Indiana, Bobcats mate between early January to March. During the breeding season, a male bobcat may mate with multiple females. If they successfully mate, the gestation period for bobcats is 60 days. Females mostly give birth in late April or early May.
After breeding, the male and female go their separate ways. The female takes all responsibility for the selection of a den site and the rearing of the young. Females generally give birth between late April and early May. See
Look for maternal dens in a wooded area. Bobcats use features such as a rock outcropping, hollow trees or hollow logs, openings in the ground, the root masses of overturned stumps, or the space beneath a fallen tree as denning sites.
A bobcat litter consists of anywhere from 1 to 5 kittens. The average litter size, though, is around 3. Bobcat kittens are born with their eyes sealed, just like domestic cats are. However, their eyes will open when they are a week to 10 days old. By the time they are 2 months old, they will have replaced their spotted baby fur with a haircoat similar to what their parents have.
By mid-July, the kittens begin to venture out with the mother bobcats to fine-tune their survival skills. Their training may last into the early winter. By mid-winter, the kittens strike out on their own.
Recent research done by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources in south-central Indiana indicates that bobcats sometimes disperse up to 100 miles from where they were born.
Female bobcats reach sexual maturity at 1 year of age, while males reach sexual maturity at age 2.
The average life span of a wild bobcat in Indiana is 10 to 12 years. See
Indiana mountain lion (Puma concolor)
Due to the fact that they live over a wide geographical area, mountain lions have a long list of regional names. In recent years, their scientific name was even changed from Felis concolor to Puma concolor. Some common names that mountain lions go by are cougar, panther painter, Andean Mountain lion, and puma.
Where are mountain lions typically found?
Mountain lions live on all three of the American continents. Their range begins in Canada’s Yukon territory and extends south through parts of North America, Central America, and South America to the southern tip of Argentina.
In Canada, the biggest populations of them are in British Columbia and Alberta. On the other hand, in the United States, they mainly live in the western states, the two midwestern states of South Dakota and Nebraska, and Florida in the southeast. In Florida, the cougar is called the Florida panther.
Although mountain lions are also native to most of the eastern and midwestern United States, they have been extirpated from most of this territory.
Mountain lions, along with black bears, are native to Indiana. However, due to habitat destruction and overhunting, both species were extirpated from the state in the 19th century.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources keeps a database of reports of mountain lions within the state. They also attempt to authenticate every report of a mountain lion sighting that they receive. To date, they only have 2 recent confirmed mountain lion sightings on record.
One of these occurred in the fall of 2009 in southern Clay County. The other occurred in the spring of 2010 in Greene County.
What do mountain lions look like?
To visualize what a mountain lion looks like, picture a giant house cat with short, light brown fur. Mountain lions are much larger than domestic cats, though. Average house cats weigh in at around 10 pounds, while male mountain lions can weigh over 200 pounds.
These large cats have muscular slender bodies, rounded small heads, and upright ears that are oval at the tip. Another characteristic that mountain lions have is their muscular long tails, which account for almost one-third of the entire length of the animal. They use their long tail for a counterbalance, moving it from side to side as they navigate through uneven terrain.
Mountain lions have a tan coat of short, coarse hair over most of their body. The area around their nose, the tip of their tail, and the tips of their ears are black. Their belly, the area above their upper lip, below their lower lip, and their chin are all white. They also have a sprinkling of dark hair on their backs. There are some coat color variances between different geographic locations.
Mountain lions are the second largest cats in the western hemisphere, smaller only than the Jaguar (Panthera onca). However, worldwide, the African Lion, ((Panthera leo) and the Tiger (Panthera tigris) are also larger.
Male and female mountain lions are phenotypically identical in every respect except for size. Males are 30 to 40% bigger than females. Though sizes vary considerably throughout the cat’s geographic range, an adult male typically weighs between 110 and 180 pounds, 50 to (82 kgs). A rare few of them grow bigger than 200 pounds (91kgs). Female mountain lions or queens average between 80 and 130 pounds (36 to 59 kgs). Adult males or toms will reach a length of 6 to 8 feet (1.8 to 2.4 M) from their snout to the tip of their tail. On the other hand, adult females are 5 to 7 feet long (1.5 to 2.1 M).
Large cats but not big cats
An interesting fact is that while an adult mountain lion might be a large cat or maybe even a big cat, they are not taxonomically classified as big cats because they cannot roar. A Snow leopard, for example, is smaller than a mountain lion. However, since snow leopards can roar and cannot purr, they are classified as big cats, while mountain lions are not. Another interesting thing that I can mention here is that mountain lions purr.
Since they purr and cannot roar, mountain lions are in the Felis genus, while big cats that cannot purr and can roar are in the Panthera genus.
Biologists taxonomically divided mountain lions into 2 sub-species in 2017. The first is (Puma concolor couguar) or northern cougar. Northern cougars range through North America, Central America, and possibly northwestern South America. The second sub-species is (Puma concolor concolor) or southern cougar. These cats range only in South America.
Exotic feline rescue center
The exotic feline rescue center, which is located in Center Point, Indiana, was opened in 1991 by Joe Taft.
From their website, their mission statement reads as follows.
“We provide permanent homes for exotic felines that have been abused, abandoned, or for some reason have nowhere to live out their lives, while educating the public about these beautiful cats:
· We do not buy, sell or breed cats
· We do not allow public contact with the cats
· We give big cats a home for life
· We provide stable social groups
· We provide enhanced environments
· We provide excellent veterinary care”
To date, the feline rescue center’s resident exotic animals include African lions, tigers, leopards, mountain lions, bobcats, servals, a serval/savannah cat hybrid, fishing cats, and an Asian leopard cat/Bengal cat hybrid,
For additional information on the Exotic, Feline Rescue Center, Click here
