Lynx lynx
The Eurasian lynx is one of the four extant species within the medium-sized wild cat genus Lynx. It is widely distributed from Northern, Central and Eastern Europe to Central Asia and Siberia, the Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayas. It inhabits temperate and boreal forests up to an elevation of 5,500 m (18,000 ft). Despite its wide distribution, it is threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching and depletion of prey.

Aconcagua ( talk ) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- Eurasian lynxPBDB
- Sits inside
- LynxPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Lynx
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Felidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Time the record covers
At least 2.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 0 Mya.
16 occurrences of Lynx lynx on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
16 occurrences- Pliocene15%
- Pleistocene78%
- Holocene7%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
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The named rock units Lynx lynx has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 14 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Lynx lynx and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Lynx lynx and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
331 taxa- Vulpes vulpes10 sites
- Equus8 sites
- Dama dama7 sites
- Sus scrofa7 sites
- Cervus elaphus6 sites
- Bos primigenius5 sites
- Canis lupus5 sites
- Capra ibex5 sites
- Capreolus capreolus5 sites
- Cervus4 sites
- Megaloceros4 sites
- Meles meles4 sites
- Panthera pardus4 sites
- Ursus arctos4 sites
- Anguis fragilis3 sites
- Bufo bufo3 sites
- Emys orbicularis3 sites
- Erinaceus3 sites
- Felis3 sites
- Felis silvestris3 sites
- Homo3 sites
- Lepus europaeus3 sites
- Martes martes3 sites
- Mimomys3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 16 sites for Lynx lynx, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
12 references- Reidentifications and synonomies of European mammals3
- Die jungpleistozänen Säugetierfaunen aus dem Travertingebiet von Taubach-Weimar-Ehringsdorf (The Early Plestocene mammalian fauna from the travetin-area of Taubach-Weimar-Ehringsdorf)2
- Catalogue of Tertiary Fossil Sites of the Land Mammals in the U.S.S.R.2
- Paleolithic subsistence strategies and changes in site use at Klissoura Cave 1 (Peloponnese, Greece)1
- New Neanderthal remains from Mani peninsula, Southern Greece: The Kalamakia Middle Paleolithic cave site1
- On the evolution of diet and landscape during the Upper Paleolithic through Mesolithic at Franchthi Cave (Peloponnese, Greece)1
- Missing mammals from mesolithic middens: A comparison of the fossil and archaeological records from Scotland1
- Natural Trap Cave1
- Pleistocene and Holocene mammalian faunas from the Maasvlakete near Rotterdam (The Netherlands)1
- Pleistocene vertebrate faunas of Hungary1
- Pleistocene-Recent fauna of the Isleta Caves, Bernalillo County, New Mexico1
- La grotte de l'Observatoire à Monaco1
Each of the 16 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Lynx lynx
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Aconcagua ( talk )
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- Loïc Norgeot
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itLynx through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)