No. A bobcat’s tail is always short, usually about 4 to 7 inches and roughly a quarter of the body’s length, even in the largest bobcats. The stubby, cut-off look is built into the species and gave the animal its name. Tail length does vary a little from one cat to the next, and that small range is behind many reports of a “long-tailed bobcat.” A wild cat with a truly long tail is almost always a different animal, which makes the tail one of the easiest clues you have.
How Long a Bobcat’s Tail Actually Gets
- Males: tail about 4.25 to 7.9 inches.1San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Library. Bobcat (Lynx rufus) Fact Sheet: Physical Characteristics
- Females: tail about 3.5 to 6.7 inches.2San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Library. Bobcat (Lynx rufus) Fact Sheet: Physical Characteristics
- Typical adult: body about 32 to 37 inches long with a tail around 6 inches.3Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Bobcat
- Proportion: the tail makes up roughly a quarter of the total length.4San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Library. Bobcat (Lynx rufus) Fact Sheet: Physical Characteristics
Even the longest bobcat tail, near 8 inches, is shorter than the cat’s hind leg is tall. So a bobcat’s tail never reaches the ground or curls the way a house cat’s or a cougar’s does.5Spotter. How to Identify a Bobcat (vs. Mountain Lion and Cat) Young bobcats have the same short-tail proportions as adults, so a small cat with a long tail is not a young bobcat that hasn’t grown into its tail yet.
A tail can look longer than it is. Winter fur is longer and makes the tail look thicker, and at a distance thickness is easily mistaken for length. A tail raised or twitching, seen at an angle, exaggerates it further. The best check is to compare the tail with the cat’s hind leg or body rather than guessing at inches.
Photos add their own distortions. Wide-angle trail camera lenses stretch whatever is closest to the lens, so a tail pointed toward the camera can look out of proportion. Night infrared images blur motion, and a swishing tail can smear into a longer streak.
If the Tail Was Long, It Was Probably a Mountain Lion or a House Cat
People often report seeing a “baby mountain lion” when they actually saw a bobcat. Some even insist the cougar’s tail must have been cut off.6Orange County Outdoors. Why do we mistake bobcats for mountain lions? – Orange County Outdoors A mountain lion losing its tail is extremely rare, so a large, short-tailed wild cat is almost certainly a bobcat (or, in the far north, a lynx).7Orange County Outdoors. Why do we mistake bobcats for mountain lions? – Orange County Outdoors The reverse also holds. A mountain lion’s tail is long, thick, and dark-tipped, about a third of its body length.
Domestic cats are the other usual answer. Many outdoor house cats are tabby-striped and can look wild at a distance. A medium striped cat with a long, evenly ringed tail is most likely a pet or a feral cat.
Size sorts the three quickly. A bobcat stands about knee-high to a person and looks leggy, with a rounded head and a short body. A mountain lion is far larger, with a long body, a small head for its size, and a plain tawny coat. Judge size against fixed objects such as a fence, a step, or a shrub.
If you think it was a mountain lion, leave the area calmly. Don’t approach it or run, and keep children and pets close. Write down the place and time while you remember them clearly, and report the sighting to your state wildlife agency, which tracks mountain lion activity. Photos of tracks or the tail give officials something concrete to confirm.
How to Recognize a Bobcat’s Tail
The bobcat’s tail has dark bars on top and a black tip on the upper side.8Spotter. How to Identify a Bobcat (vs. Mountain Lion and Cat) The underside is white.9Accent on Natural Landscaping. Bobcat
A Canada lynx also has a short tail, but its tip is black all the way around. A bobcat’s black is only on top, with white beneath.10Vail Daily. Bobcat or lynx? Here’s how you can tell Where their ranges overlap in the north, the tail tip is the quickest way to tell them apart.
Other features back up the tail. The coat is spotted or streaked, with more distinct spots on the legs and belly. The ears are black on the back with a white spot, and they carry short black tufts. A ruff of facial fur frames the face like sideburns. The hind legs are longer than the front legs, which gives the cat a slightly bouncing gait.
With a trail camera photo, pause on a sharp frame where the cat turns sideways. Look for the white underside when the tail lifts, and compare the tail tip to the joint halfway up the hind leg to judge length.
Why Bobcats Ended Up With Short Tails
Long tails help with balance. House cats walking a moving narrow beam swing their tails opposite to the movement to stay upright.11Lake Forest College. Out of the bag: Balance mechanisms during locomotion in cats That means long tails mainly pay off in climbing and in high-speed, sharp-turning chases. Bobcats mostly hunt on the ground in dense cover, ambushing rather than chasing.12Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge. What’s the Purpose of a Tail for Big Cats? (And Why Bobcats Have Such Short Ones) Cougars show the contrast: they chase deer and must sprint and pivot, so a long tail helps them stay balanced.
A short tail also stays hidden. A long twitching tail could alert prey and larger predators to a bobcat’s presence.13Felidae Conservation Fund. Bobcat & mountain lion tails For this cat, a short tail is an advantage, not a defect.
Bobcats did not lose their tails to fights or frostbite and then pass that on. The short tail is inherited and present from birth. An individual bobcat can lose part of its tail to injury, but that only makes it shorter, never longer.
Are Bobtailed Pet Cats Part Bobcat
No. Short tails in pet cats have their own genetic cause. In Manx cats, the tailless or stubby-tailed breed, nearly all short-tailed cats carry a change in a single tail-length gene.14PubMed Central. Multiple mutant T alleles cause haploinsufficiency of Brachyury and short tails in Manx cats The same change causes short tails in several western bobtail breeds.15Laboklin Vet. Short tail (Bobtail, Brachyury) It is dominant and shows at birth, ranging from no tail to a partial stub.16Laboklin Vet. Short tail (Bobtail, Brachyury) Japanese Bobtails and some Asian cats get their short tails from a different gene.17PubMed Central. Whole Genome Sequencing Identifies a Missense Mutation in HES7 Associated with Short Tails in Asian Domestic Cats Either way, a bobbed house cat inherited it from house cats, not from bobcats. A short tail alone doesn’t make a cat a bobcat, since size, leg length, and coat markings matter just as much.
The Pixie-bob story is similar. Pixie-bobs were marketed as descendants of bobcat and house cat crosses.18Petstore.com. Pixie-Bob: The Legend of the Bobcat Hybrid and the Reality of the Breed DNA tests have found no bobcat genes in them, so they are treated as fully domestic cats for ownership and registration.19europetnet.org. Pixie-bob
How to Confirm What You Saw
Wildlife biologists can confirm a species from traces an animal leaves behind. They can identify a bobcat from as few as two hairs using DNA.20PubMed Central. Novel hair snare and genetic methods for non‐invasive bobcat detection Hair and droppings both identify species successfully most of the time, about 8 in 10 or more.21The Journal of Wildlife Management. Evaluation of Noninvasive Genetic Sampling Methods for Felid and Canid Populations A report with location details can be useful to your state agency.
After a sighting, take a side-on photo or video if it is safe, making sure the tail is in the frame. Photograph tracks next to a coin or ruler for scale; bobcat tracks are round, with no claw marks showing. Note the cat’s size relative to a fence, plants, or a parked car. Then send the photos to your state wildlife agency or a local naturalist group.