Research overview: bobcat diet and prey flexibility

The bobcat is a versatile predator, and this overview synthesizes diet studies showing rabbits and hares as the dietary mainstay across much of the range, supplemented by rodents, birds, reptiles, and occasionally deer, especially fawns and in winter. The species adjusts its diet to local and seasonal prey availability, a flexibility that underpins its broad distribution. Where larger prey is accessible, bobcats can take animals well above their own weight. This dietary breadth contrasts sharply with the prey specialization of the Iberian and Canada lynxes and helps explain why the bobcat is so resilient. Documenting diet across regions clarifies the cat ecological role in controlling small-mammal populations and its capacity to persist amid environmental change.