Bobcat

Adult bobcats are about 2 feet tall and weigh 20 pounds. They are usually light brown to reddish brown. Their fur is spotted when they are babies, but the spots fade when they grow up. Bobcats have very short tails, only three to seven inches long. They keep their sharp claws inside their toes, so when they leave a footprint, there are no claw marks. Bobcats have very sharp teeth and only eat meat.

Bobcats like to live in woods or grassy areas. They are nocturnal (night animals), and many of their prey are night animals too. They eat rabbits, rats, squirrels, ground birds, turkeys, and even small deer. Bobcats can only eat about 3 pounds of meat at a time, so if they get too much to eat at one time, they will drag the leftovers to a safe spot and cover them up. Later they will come back, and eat again and again, until the leftover meat is gone. They have keen eyes and ears, this helps them while hunting for food. The soft pads on their feet help them to sneak up on an animal quietly. Bobcats can run up to 30 miles per hour, but they usually walk. They put their back feet in the same spots where their front feet stepped, so they don’t make so much noise by snapping extra twigs under their feet. Bobcats climb well, and they can swim, but they prefer not to.

Bobcats like to make their dens under fallen logs or under the root mass of a fallen tree. When the mother has babies, she has to find a dry den that her babies will be safe in. In the spring, two or three kittens are born. When the bobcat babies are two months old, they don’t need milk anymore and can eat adult food. The young bobcats stay with their mother until they are half-grown and weigh about twelve pounds. Bobcats live to be ten or twelve years old.

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