What are the eating patterns of the lynx to enable its survival?

Lynxes are nocturnal animals, meaning that they hunt at night. They are also carnivores and eat a variety of foods such as: mice, squirrels, birds, voles, grouse, ptarmigan, red squirrel, rabbits, rodents, foxes, weasels, small deer, eggs and snow hare.

About 75% of the lynx's diet is made up of the snow hare. The snow hare is the lynxes, almost exclusively main source of food. Lynxes depend on the snow hare so much that if they can not hunt the snow hare then the lynxes population decreases, rising and falling in sync with the snow hares populations.

In the summer a lynx has a larger variety of foods to choose from but the lynx will still consider its main prey to be the snow hare. A hungry lynx will eat an entire snow hare in one meal but lynxes will usually hide a partly eaten snow hare to finish later and hide it under the snow where no other animal will find it.

Male lynxes will usually hunt alone because they are solitary animals.

The lynx is a part of the family of felidae, the order of carnivivora. Lynxes are considered as to being the most carnivorous of all meat-eating animals, this is good with their survival enabling the lynx to hunt better because their digestive systems are designed to only eat meat and because of that they have a very high source of protein giving the lynx strength, Meaning lynxes don’t have to eat large amounts of quantities of food and only hunt when they need to eat.

Because lynxes cannot run fast except for over short distances, they stalk or ambush their prey at close a range. A common strategy the lynx use is to lie and wait beside the well-used trails, or runways, of the snowshoe hare. They will also lodge themselves into trees and watch their prey below. Stalking their prey in the tree tops is a lot safer from predators because they can take refuge in the tress so predators can’t eat them.