A bobcat is a wild cat that lives alone. Bobcats live from southern Canada through most of the United States to southern Mexico. A bobcat is named for its short tail, which is about 4 to 7 inches long. Its head and body are 65 to 105 centimeters long, not counting the tail. It weighs between 4 and 15 kilograms, which is 9 to 33 pounds. A bobcat has tufts of fur on its ears and ruffs of fur at the sides of its face. Its fur is shades of buff and brown, with dark spots or stripes.

Bobcats can live in a wide variety of habitats. A habitat is the kind of place where an animal lives. They live in forests, mountains and brushland, and they like forest with thick underbrush. They are good climbers and good swimmers, and a bobcat sleeps in a hidden den. A den is a hidden home, often in a hollow tree. Its tracks are round, with four toe pads and no claw marks.

Bobcats have strong senses of vision and hearing. They are mostly active around dusk and dawn. Dusk is the early evening, and dawn is the early morning. A bobcat is a patient hunter. It hunts by stalking its prey and then pouncing. It can run up to 30 miles per hour, which is 48 kilometers per hour. Bobcats mostly eat rabbits and hares. Besides rabbits, they eat squirrels, rats and mice, and they also eat birds and reptiles.

Each bobcat marks its territory with scent. Scent is a smell. A territory is the area an animal uses as its own. A home range is the area where an animal lives and hunts. A female bobcat's home range is smaller than a male's, so a male's is larger. Females' ranges rarely overlap one another.

A young bobcat is called a kitten. A bobcat mother usually has two or three kittens at a time. The kittens are born with their eyes closed and open their eyes at about 10 days old. They drink their mother's milk for about two months. Young bobcats leave their mother in their first fall or winter, when they are about 8 months old, and some bobcats live up to 12 years in the wild.

Words to know

• habitat: animal's home place
• territory: an animal's area
• underbrush: low thick plants
• dusk: early evening
• scent: a smell