Lady’s mantle Alchemilla

The Eurasian Lynx is a distinctive species of wild cat that was common in the Alps until the 19th century. Together with the grey wolf and the brown bear, it was one of the three big predators that were intentionally eradicated across much of Europe during the course of the 1800s. However, a successful reintroduction programme in the 1970s has resulted in scattered, small populations now observed living across the French, Swiss and Italian Alps.

Lynx Description:

Eurasian lynx range in size from 18kg to 34kg. They stand 50-65cm at the shoulder, with a body length of 70-130cm. Males are generally larger and heavier than females. Their coat is varied in colour and pattern. They can be grey, reddish-brown or yellow, with or without spots or stripes. Their distinguishing features are a short, bobbed, black-tipped tail, black tufts of hair on their ears, and flared facial ruff.

They are solitary animals and only come together during the mating season, from February to April. The female gives birth to 2-3 cubs after a gestation period of 67-74 days. The cubs are born blind and deaf, and spend their first few weeks in a secluded den built by their mother. They are totally dependent on her for the first couple of months of life. However, they grow quickly and are independent after around 10 months.

Habitat and Diet:

They live in a variety of habitats, including thick forests and rocky mountains. They are most active in the evening and early morning and tend to spend the daylight hours sleeping concealed in undergrowth or caves. Lynx are territorial, and each adult lynx will have its own home territory. Female territories tend to be in the range of 100-200km, while male territories are larger, in the region of 240-280 km. Territory size is inversely proportional to prey availability, where prey are more numerous, territory sizes are usually smaller.

Lynx are strict carnivores, eating only meat. In the Alps, their preferred prey are roe deer, musk deer and chamois. However, they will also hunt foxes, rabbits, rodents, sheep and birds where larger animals are unavailable. They are ambush hunters and stalk their prey silently, before pouncing and killing them either with a bite to the neck or by biting down on the snout and suffocating the animal. Lynx can kill prey 3-4 times their own size. Any meat that is not immediately eaten is cached for later.

In the French Alps, lynx often inhabit the same areas as the grey wolf. As long as prey is not scarce, the two tend to co-exist, showing neither avoidance nor attraction behaviours. This is thought to be due to the difference in prey selection – the grey wolf preference is for larger red deer, while the lynx favours the smaller roe deer. However, where prey is scarce, there is evidence that grey wolves will also hunt lynx, both to eat and in order to reduce the competition for food.

Adaptations:

The paws of the lynx are very well-adapted for walking in deep snow. Their paws are large, webbed and covered in fur on the underside. Their large size and webbing create a snowshoe effect and stops the lynx from sinking into the snow. Meanwhile, fur covering on pads helps to maintain traction.

It is less clear what purpose (if any) their bobbed tail and dark ear tuft adaptations serve. It has been suggested that the ear tufts may enhance their hearing, although this has not been proven. One theory for their short tails is that lynx have little need for a longer tail. Since they spend much of their time on the ground and climb relatively little, they don’t need the balance that a tail provides. In addition, their ambush-style hunting strategy doesn’t rely on long chases, where a tail would provide a ‘rudder’ effect.

However, this theory isn’t entirely satisfactory. Other cats, such as tigers, have tails that don’t appear to be particularly beneficial. Meanwhile, gibbons spend much of their life climbing trees and have no tail at all. Perhaps instead the lynx’s short tail was simply the result of a natural and neutral gene mutation, like that of the Manx cat, and perhaps this ended up being the dominant form purely by chance.

Extermination and Reintroduction:

Along with the grey wolf and the brown bear, lynx populations across Europe have declined over time as human populations expanded. These large predators were seen as a threat to both people and livestock, and their eradication was often an objective in agricultural societies. In addition, the expansion of farming resulted in a reduction in their natural habitat, meaning they had fewer places to hide.

By the 1800s lowland lynx populations had all but disappeared. Within central Europe, the only remaining populations were in the mountains of the Pyrenees, Alps and Massif Central. By 1930 even these individuals had disappeared.

Since the 1900s, governments across the Alps have passed legislation to limit the impact of human farming on the natural Alpine environment and provide protection to the native animals. A small reintroduction programme in the 1970s released 8-10 lynx from the Carpathian Mountains into the Jura Mountains. No research programme accompanied the release, and so the numbers were not subsequently monitored. However, in the last few years, lynx sightings have become more frequent. One such sighting in Chartreuse made the local newspaper in March 2020 [1].

Lyngurium:

One of the most interesting myths associated with the lynx is that their urine solidifies and transforms into a gemstone. This gemstone, called lyngurium, was first described by the ancient philosopher Theophrastus (c.370 BC – c. 287 BC) in his scientific work De Lapidibus (‘On Stones’). He described it as being cold, hard and clear, with the ability to attract other objects including straw, leaves and thin pieces of copper. In his work, he claimed that male lynx produced superior lyngurium to female lynx and that the stones of a wild lynx were better than those of a tame one.

Despite no examples of this stone ever having been recorded, belief in the gem persisted up until the seventeenth century. The story of lyngurium is repeated over and over in medieval lapidaries, all evidence for its existence seemingly coming down to the report by Theophrastus. However, by the mid-seventeenth century, authors such as de Laet and de Boot had started to dispute the existence of lyngurium, and the name slowly died out.

Lynx are still incredibly rare in the Alps. Their elusive nature and low numbers make it a very difficult animal to spot in the wild. In our next blog, we will be looking at an altogether more common and easily-spotted animal native to the Ecrins: the European Green Lizard.

[1] https://www.ledauphine.com/environnement/2020/03/09/chartreuse-un-lynx-apercu-sur-une-route-du-massif

Main image credit Bernard Landgraf (User:Baerni) / CC BY-SA

With its large curved horns and incredible climbing ability, the Alpine Ibex is one of the most instantly-recognisable animals in the Alps. Also known as the Steinbock or Bouquetin, this species of goat lives wild in the European Alps and can regularly be spotted on hikes in the Ecrins National Park.

Alpine Ibex Description:

Alpine Ibex display extreme sexual dimorphism, with females significantly smaller than males. Males grow to a height of 90-100 cm and can weigh anywhere between 70 kg and 117kg, while females generally weigh less than half of this and grow to a maximum of about 85 cm. Both sexes have backwards-curving horns. However, the male horns are far larger than those of the female, reaching up to nearly 100 cm. Female horns rarely exceed 35cm. Both males and females of the species have similar dull brownish-grey coats, with dark markings on the throat and chin, and a dark stripe running down the back. They are quite long-lived, and in the wild they can live to about 19 years.

Alpine Ibex Description:

Ibex have lived in the Alps for many thousands of years. In fact, images of the ibex have been depicted in some of the oldest cave paintings in the world. However, excessive hunting had nearly wiped the species out by the 1800s. It was prized both for its meat and for its use in traditional medicine. In addition, trophy hunters valued the beautiful horns of the males.

In 1821, a report on the near-extinction of the ibex prompted Charles-Felix, duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia to ban Ibex hunting on his estates of the Gran Paradiso. This was quickly extended to the entire kingdom, and in 1854 the Gran Paradiso was declared a protected hunting estate by King Victor Emmanuel II. With this protection in place, the animals thrived and increased in number. They naturally dispersed into the neighbouring Vanoise National Park, where they have since become the official emblem of the park. Since then, there have been several very successful reintroduction programmes to bring the animal to other areas of the Alps, and today, the Alpine population is thought to stand at around 30,000 individuals.

Habitat and Behaviour:

Alpine Ibex tend to inhabit steep, rocky ground between 1800m and 3300m. They are herbivores, feeding mainly on grasses, mosses, bushes and flowers. The low nutritional content of their diet means they need to spend a large part of each day feeding.

These are social animals and live together in herds. However, the herds segregate both sexually and spatially and they come together only during the breeding season in December and January. After this, they separate again. Females give birth to one or occasionally two kids, after a gestation period of around 167 days.

Female herds are generally larger than male herds, with around 20 females to a group, compared to 6-8 males. Social segregation may in part derive from the different behavioural characteristics of the sexes. Even from a young age, male and female of the species exhibit different preferences for play. Young females tend to avoid the rougher play of the young males, leading naturally to segregation.

In the summer, the male herds generally migrate to lower alpine pastures, to feed on the nutrient-rich new grass. Female herds, however, tend to stay closer to cliffs rather than follow the males to the open pastures. This is likely due to the cliffs providing greater protection for their young. Winter shows a greater spatial overlap of the herds, with both male and female herds moving to steep, rocky slopes.

Ibex in Winter:

Winter poses problems for many animals in terms of finding adequate food supplies. Smaller mammals often deal with this by hibernating. However, larger animals tend not to hibernate. It is thought that this is because their larger size makes them difficult to hide, and therefore more vulnerable to predators.

Ibex, in common with many other northern ungulates, are able to lower their metabolic rate in the winter. This considerably lowers their energy requirements, allowing them to get through the cold winter months with far less food. In fact, studies have shown very strong seasonal variation in their daily heart rates, with heart rates up to 60% lower in winter than in summer. In addition, they engage in ‘basking’ or sunbathing, similar to that done by reptiles, to further reduce their energy requirements.

Climbing:

Ibex are well-known for their exceptional climbing ability. They can quickly cover vast distances over tricky terrain when threatened and can jump nearly two meters straight up. In Piedmont and Lombardy, they can be observed climbing near-vertical dam walls to lick the salt from the stones.

They have several adaptations that allow them to climb with such remarkable skill. The most important of these is their special hoof design. The ibex hoof has two toes, which can move independently. The outer edge of each toe is comprised of the same hard keratin that makes up skin and nails, while the inner sole of the toe is soft and rubbery. The hard edges allow them to dig into tiny ledges in the rock, while the soft inner sole moulds to the surface. The fact that the toes can move independently gives them greater manoeuvrability over tricky surfaces, allowing them to use just one toe if the ledge is particularly narrow.

In the Alps, ibex have few predators. Until recently in many areas, they tended to die of old age, starvation or disease. However, that has changed in the last few years, with the introduction of wolves across much of the Alps. We will be taking a look at the wolf and its role in the Alpine environment in our next Alpine Wildlife blog post.