Snakes ‘n Cats

Remember Ferrebeekeeper’s erstwhile roommate Jennifer? During the beginning of the pandemic she packed up her New York City life and moved off to Knoxville. With her went her youthful ward, Miloš Cat, a dashing orphaned street-tabby whom Jennifer plucked from the mean streets of East Flatbush. Living in a dinky backwater city sounds like a bit of a mixed bag–with a handful of positive aspects of urban living balanced against a lot of missing things. And there are elements of the country too! One thing I keep hearing about is the sheer mortality of little water snakes in Jennifer’s Knoxville domicile. Apparently Miloš Cat has taken a shine to the native fauna and sucks these poor guys up like spaghetti (you know, if you ate half of spaghetti and left the mutilated remaining portion on Jennifer’s pristine floor or pillow) [Editor’s note: Please DO NOT DO THIS with snakes or spaghetti].

Here is a JPEG of young Miloš, chomping on his own rather snakelike tail (photo credit: Jennifer Buffett)

Anyway, what does the story of a tabby cat eating snakes in the American South have to do with today’s post? A lot it turns out! Back at the dawn of Ferrebeekeeper, we wrote about the influx of predatory Burmese pythons which irresponsible exotic snake owners dumped in the Florida Everglades. The snakes, which grow to unnerving immensity, are apex predators of Southeast Asia (surely one of Earth’s most competitive ecosystems) and they have been wreaking havoc on the ‘glades. Florida winters have not diminished the invasive snake’s numbers and even teams of armed Florida men authorized to hunt the monsters with all of the firepower available from America’s finest gun shops have done little to stop the pythons. Apparently nothing can stand against the mighty serpents.

Or so it seemed…

Floridian biologists wanted to understand more about the pythons’ nesting behaviors so they set up a camouflaged camera to observe the nest of a 55 kilogram (120 pound) laying snake. What the camera revealed was a complete shock (sorry for the clickbait sentence here in paragraph 3). A feisty swamp bobcat showed up and harassed the mama snake on her nest. Later on, when she slithered off to do python errands (eating native wildlife I guess?), the cat returned and ate all the eggs! It was a real shock to the biologists who did not expect the native swamp denizens to stand up to the Burmese python so effectively. They are setting up a new snake camera elsewhere, however, at least a certain furry someone seems to have the python’s number. Biologists will now keep their eyes open to see whether other bobcats are wrecking snake nests and eating python eggs throughout south Florida (and how much of an impact this has on the snakes). Hopefully Miloš will take this lesson to heart too, and stop eating up the native fauna of Tennessee (lest some Appalachia hill snake strike back at the non-native).

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Lynxes

The Eurasian Lynx (Lynx lynx)

The genus Lynx consists of four furtive species of medium-sized wildcats which inhabit giant swaths of the northern hemisphere.  The cats are solitary hunters which prey on a wide range of animals including lagomorphs (rabbits and pikas), rodents, foxes, sheep, goats, various species of deer and chamois, as well as gamebirds such as grouses, turkeys, ptarmigans, and waterfowl.  This list is hardly comprehensive–all four species of lynx are opportunistic predators which will catch and eat all sorts of insects, reptiles, fish, and amphibians.

A Lynx Finishes Off a Hare.

Lynxes share common features such as bobbed tails, large paws, tufted ears, buff spotted coats, ruffs under the neck, and long whiskers.  All four species also utilize a common reproductive strategy.  Lynxes and bobcats mate in winter and the female then raises her litter of two to four kittens over the course of a second winter.  After one winter with their mother, the young adults move out on their own. Lynxes like to sleep in sheltered dens provided by caves, deadfalls, or hollow logs.  They are strongly territorial (although males maintain larger territories which overlap each other and may contain the territories of many females).

Baby Canadian Lynx (Lynx canadensis)

Although the classification of the family Felidae is continuously being revised, the current members of the Lynx genus are as follow:

The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is the largest lynx, which ranges from Europe, across all of Siberia to China.  Male Eurasian Lynxes weigh from18 to 30 kg (40 to 66 lb) and can stand up to 70 cm (28 in) at the shoulder.  Like all lynxes, the Eurasian lynx is a stalking predator which silently shadows its prey before pouncing for the kill.

The Canadian lynx (Lynx canadensis) a specialist of the arctic forests of Canada which preys largely on snowfoot hares.  The Canadian lynx has huge paws which spread its weight out over the snow in the manner of snowshoes.  In winter the Canadian lynx grows a thick multilayered coat.

The bobcat (Lynx rufus) is an adaptable predator which ranges from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Southern Canada deep into Mexico’s deserts.  An adaptable generalist, the bobcat can live in any type of forest, as well as in deserts, swamps, and mountains.  The successful creatures even live in agricultural or developed lands.

In contrast to the bobcat, the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) is the world’s most endangered cat species. At present there may be fewer than a hundred left in the wild.  Once overhunted, the Iberian lynx now suffers from habitat loss (thanks to overdevelopment) and attendant traffic fatalities.  In Spain and Portugal rabbit populations (the Iberian lynx’s preferred prey) have crashed because of myxomatosis, a viral disease from the Americas which was introduced to Europe by a short-sighted French bacteriologist.  Finally, the once diverse forests of Iberia were replaced with agricultural monoculture which exacerbated the ecosystem destruction.

The Iberian Lynx (Lynx pardinus)

If the Iberian lynx does indeed go extinct, it will be the first cat to do so since Smilodon.  Fortunately the other 3 lynxes are all relatively secure in numbers (although habitat destruction sometimes drives them out of specific areas–particularly in Western Europe).

There is a bobcat (Lynx rufus) somewhere in there I think.

Superb stealthiness, nocturnal habits, and highly effective camouflage render the lynxes nearly invisible to humans (although people do sometimes hear their unearthly haunting yowls at night).  Because of this elusiveness (combined with their keen eyesight and hearing) lynxes have acquired a somewhat otherworldly reputation in folklore and myth.  In ancient legends and stories, bobcats and lynxes were said to hold secret wisdom hidden from the comprehension of men or other creatures.  They were animals of augury and foresight which occasionally appeared to sorcerers, oracles, and shamans with occult knowledge.  According to “Animal Speak” by Ted Andrews, “The Greeks believed the lynx could see through solid objects. In fact it is named for Lynceus, a mythological character who could also do this.” During the middle ages and the Renaissance, the lynx’s ability to see without being seen was linked with the omniscient vision of Christ.

The Crest of Accademia dei Lincei

The long association of lynxes with sharp-sightedness lingered into the early modern world where the lynx’s piercing vision became a metaphor for scholarly insight and scientific breakthrough.   The world’s first Academy of Science (well, the first one which wasn’t disbanded by the Inquisition) took its name from the lynx:  The Accademia dei Lincei, (“Academy of the Lynx-Eyed”, or Lincean Academy), was an Italian science academy founded in 1603 by Federico Cesi, an aristocrat from Umbria.  Cesi was passionate about natural science (particularly botany) and he gathered a group of polymaths and geniuses together to observe the natural world and explain it by means of experiments and the inductive method.  The society was one of the first to use lenses for scientific purposes and they produced an important collection of micrographs—drawings created with the newly invented microscope.  Their most famous member, Galileo Galilei was famous the discoveries he made with a telescope—discoveries which altered the way humankind perceived the universe.  Even as the Church turned the zealous eye of the Inquisition upon Galileo, the society supported him and made sure his books were published and his ideas were disseminated (thanks largely to Cesi’s aristocratic connections and fortune).  In fact, after joining the society, Galileo always signed his name as Galileo Galilei Linceo.

Frontispiece of Galileo’s Istoria e Dimostrazioni intorno alle macchie solari