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????????? What do you think ??????? Nov 16, 2018 5:40 am #21692

  • Lickety-Split
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House cat or a cross? Waiting on some better pics but,,,,,,,,, pads are huge, whiskers are different, and full blooded bobcats are not the usual for Illinois or Indiana. Saw one similar a few years back in southern Starke county right off the Tippy. This one is on a preserve area in Northern LaPorte.
Have been hearing him scream at night. Will make your hair stand. Saw a set of tracks in the snow last year, almost as big as a coyote pad.
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????????? What do you think ??????? Nov 16, 2018 7:32 pm #21702

  • Steelie Don
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Looks like a feral cat to me. I bet its been living wild for its' life. I don't know if domestic cats are capable of breeding with bobcats or lynx. We have a lot of bobcats in the southern end of the state.
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????????? What do you think ??????? Nov 16, 2018 10:03 pm #21705

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Not a Bobcat, but close.
Tom

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????????? What do you think ??????? Nov 20, 2018 7:20 am #21716

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My first answer is now just my opinion. My opinion is it's just a wild (or feral) cat. First, there's some indication the Tabby color is the most successful of all the color morphs of Felis domesticus aka house cat when they are allowed to go wild - better camo when they are predators, better camo to protect them from predators. Feral cats often grow larger than their in-the-house cousins - at least body structure wise - not fat, roley-poley-wise.

Not that bobcats were high on the list of wild predators in the areas I worked when I was a biologist with the DNR for 35 years, but I'd never heard of a bobcat, domestic cat hybrid. Even though there is factual (DNA) evidence of coyotes crossing with dogs, actual tests shows it to be extremely. extremely rare. Coyotes are much more likely to eat a dog than fornicate with it. I would assume the same would occur with bobcats. They'd rather eat Puffball than make love with it.

I did a quick Google check, and learned #1) bobcats can genetically hybridize with domestic cats and #2) there are a few, exceedingly few - far fewer than coy-dogs - occurrences of this happening in the wild.

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