Iberian lynx

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Iberian lynx
Iberian lynx

Iberian lynx

Systematics
Order : Predators (Carnivora)
Subordination : Feline (Feliformia)
Family : Cats (Felidae)
Subfamily : Small cats (Felinae)
Genre : Lynx ( Lynx )
Type : Iberian lynx
Scientific name
Lynx pardinus
( Temminck , 1827)

The Iberian lynx ( Lynx pardinus ) and Iberian lynx called, is a very rare lynx , in Spain and Portugal is located. For a long time, the species was considered a subspecies of the Eurasian lynx , which originated in eastern Eurasia. In contrast to him, however, the Iberian lynx developed in its tribal history in southwest Europe and is therefore classified as an independent species today.

The habitat of the Iberian lynx is the Mediterranean scrub forest . Its specialization in a certain habitat, on wild rabbits ( Oryctolagus cuniculus ) as prey animals , whose population collapsed due to diseases, more precisely due to the myxomatosis viruses released in the 1950s , and its increasingly fragmented range have made the Iberian lynx one of the most threatened Cat species worldwide. Since 2001, the Spanish government has been trying to save this species from extinction through a conservation breeding program , as has been attempted in Portugal since 1999.

Surname

Behind the first part of the name Pardel is an old term for the leopard . The name alludes to the spotting of the Iberian lynx, which is more pronounced than that of the Eurasian lynx and is therefore reminiscent of the big cat. Similar to the last part of the name in leopard or cheetah , the name pardel goes back to the Greek word pàrdos , which in turn goes back to the Persian name for parsis ( fars ).

features

Iberian lynx, Coto de Doñana

Iberian lynx look very similar to the Eurasian lynx . Like these, they are long-legged. They have a round, cat-typical skull and pronounced whiskers, which are five to eight centimeters long and more pronounced than the Eurasian lynx. Iberian lynxes have the stubby tail that is characteristic of lynxes. It is still unclear what advantage the lynx gained from the development of this short tail, which is not characteristic of cats. At the ends of the small, triangular ears there are three centimeter long brush hairs. As with the Eurasian lynx, they are important for the hearing ability of these lynxes. In the case of the Iberian lynx, experiments have shown that the loss of the brush limits the ability to hear and locate.

Iberian lynx are much smaller than the Eurasian lynx, which are found further north. With a body weight between 9 and 15 kilograms, they weigh less than two thirds of a Eurasian lynx. Their size is 85 to 110 centimeters. The fur is usually more distinct and more spotted than that of the northern relative. A distinction is made between two color variants. The so-called large spot type has about 12 spots with an average diameter of two centimeters on its fur. What is more common, however, is the so-called small spot type, whose spots only have a diameter of about one centimeter. Overall, the fur is less dense than that of the Eurasian lynx. The basic color of the fur is a reddish yellow. With the small spot type, the fine stippling gives the impression that the fur is significantly darker than that of the Eurasian lynx.

Distribution area

Older distribution area from the 1980s - the distribution area of ​​the Iberian lynx was already disjoint at this point in time .

The original distribution probably extended over the whole area of ​​today's Spain and Portugal, older authors still speak of occurrences in Sardinia and in Greece or Western Asia. Occasionally they also counted lynx occurrences in the Carpathian Mountains as belonging to this species. A Bronze Age lynx skeleton found in southern France was attributed to this species, but this happened solely because of the small size of the animal. However, it is questionable whether the range of this lynx species ever extended beyond the Iberian Peninsula. The bite marks on rabbits, which are specific for young animals, allow the allocation of corresponding bones to the Iberian lynx, whose young were provided with these prey in caves.

The two largest occurrences live in Andalusia in the Coto de Doñana National Park and in the Sierra de Andújar in the province of Jaén (a total of 200 to 250 animals); a further occurrence in Castile-La Mancha , a very sparsely populated area with 15 animals, was confirmed in October 2007 .

In Portugal, a breeding station was established in 1999 in the Serra da Malcata protected area . From 2019 it is hoped to be able to reintroduce the animals there. In 1994 there were isolated populations of at least ten animals each in the Serra da Malcata , the Serra de São Mamede and in the Guadiana Valley, which was placed under protection in 1995 ( Parque Natural do Vale do Guadiana ), and the total was estimated at 40 to 50 lynxes. In 2005 the Iberian lynx was considered to be almost extinct in all three areas, a possible population may have disappeared due to the construction of the dam near Odelouca (completed in 2009), another habitat was destroyed by the Alqueva dam (completed in 2002).

habitat

Coto de Doñana , one of the last areas of distribution of the Iberian lynx

The preferred habitat of the Iberian lynx is open land covered with trees and shrubs. He prefers coppice forest areas , loosely planted pine groves with dense undergrowth, rockrose forests and cork oak forests with a dense population of rockrose bushes. Iberian lynx are much less pronounced forest animals than Eurasian lynx. The afforestation with eucalyptus trees and pines , which was carried out over a large area on the Iberian Peninsula, has led to a decline in the Iberian lynx population, as has the loss of numerous cork oak forests. The fact that most of the Iberian lynx live in the mountains today is due to the strong persecution and not to a natural preference for high altitudes as habitats.

Compared to the Eurasian lynx, the individual territories are much smaller. In the Estremadura , the average area that a Iberian lynx roams averages 300 hectares. But as with the Eurasian lynx, the density of the prey population and the number of coverage options are decisive for the size of the territory. The area must also have water points.

Loot spectrum

Iberian lynx are nocturnal loners. Their main prey are wild rabbits , which are of similar importance to the Iberian lynx as deer are to the Eurasian lynxes that live in Central Europe. The share that rabbits have in the total prey depends on their relative frequency compared to other potential prey animals. In the Spanish mountains, rabbits make up 56 percent of the prey animals hit. In the Spanish national park Coto de Doñana , however, their share is 79 percent. Iberian lynx are so dependent on rabbit populations that fluctuations in rabbit populations have serious effects on the lynx population. The widespread rabbit disease myxomatosis could therefore indirectly threaten the Iberian lynx. After a myxomatosis epidemic between 1958 and 1961, Iberian lynx were seen way outside of their normal range. To protect the lynx, the Spanish government has taken measures to stabilize the rabbit population, which is also declining for other reasons.

Otherwise, the Iberian lynx is a more opportunistic hunter who, in addition to rabbits, regularly kills small mammals such as mice and brown hares. If ducks are also found in his habitat , they too play a major role in his diet. In the Coto de Doñana they make up 9 percent of the vertebrates killed by the Iberian lynx. Red partridges and other diverse bird species are also regularly hunted by him. It is too small to hunt adult and healthy roe deer, red deer or fallow deer , but it regularly beats their young. The young boars also belong on his bag list. Adult wild boars, on the other hand, are too defensive for him - they are only captured in exceptional cases by the significantly larger and heavier Eurasian lynx. The average daily food requirement is one kilogram. That's about half that of the Eurasian lynx.

Hunting behavior

Like its larger cousin, the Eurasian lynx, the Iberian lynx is a surprise and ambush hunter . Unlike the wolf, for example, it does not chase its prey over long distances. His favorite prey, the rabbit, lies in wait near their burrows. If they leave their cave, it sneaks up to a distance of four meters and then hits them with a few jumps. Rabbits are killed by a bite on the neck. It bites its throats in young deer, red deer and fallow deer.

Unlike the Eurasian lynx, the Iberian lynx prefers to abduct its prey from the hunting ground. It carries rabbits, for example, over long distances before settling down and eating them down to the largest bones and remains of fur. Large prey, which it cannot carry in its mouth, it drags at least a short distance. If the prey is too big to be completely consumed immediately, it will return to it several times. Parts not consumed are buried.

Duration

Stock numbers and causes of the stock decline

Lynx fur

The drop in the Iberian lynx population is dramatic. Presumably, the population of Iberian lynxes was still 100,000 individuals across large parts of Spain and Portugal at the beginning of the 20th century. By 1960 the population had presumably dropped to 5,000 animals and the range had shrunk to a fraction of the area at the beginning of the 20th century. As early as 1960, individual populations were isolated, which is fundamentally associated with the risk of inbreeding depression . In the 1980s there were around 1,000 to 1,200 specimens living in an area of ​​around 11,000 square kilometers, and in 2000 only 100 adults. Since then, the species seems to be recovering easily:

In 2002, according to SOS Lynx, there were 150 Iberian lynx and the number of reproductive females was estimated at only 30. The IUCN, however, assumed a population of only 52 adult animals in 2002. In 2005 there were 160 Iberian lynxes, whose distribution area extended over an area of ​​585 square kilometers. In 2007, the inventory was estimated at 215 to 265 copies. In 2008, the World Wildlife Fund estimated their number at 180.

In 2009, SOS Lynx estimated the number of Iberian lynx in the wild at 220.

According to a report from 2015, there were 156 adult animals again in 2012.

Several influencing factors caused this sharp decline. The rabbit populations, the main prey of the Iberian lynx, fell sharply due to myxomatosis disease and hunting. Another cause is Lynx infection with feline leukemia virus leading to the fatal feline leukemia can lead. At the same time there was a change in land use by humans; Traditionally, bush-covered land was burned to create small agricultural areas, which was a major factor in the spread of rabbits. Where this earlier form of land use is no longer used, dense bushes form, which offer the rabbits significantly less living space. The more intensive agriculture that is developing in parallel is not a suitable habitat for the rabbits.

Danger

In the national Spanish and Portuguese Red Lists, as well as in the IUCN's Red List of Endangered Species , the species has long been identified as “Critically Endangered”, that is, as threatened with extinction. After the population had recovered from 52 to 156 animals between 2002 and 2012, the species has only been classified as "Endangered" (endangered) since 2015.

Protective measures

Wild Iberian Lynx

In 1973 and 1974, Iberian lynx hunting was banned in Spain and Portugal. The national and global countermeasures are reflected in various protection programs. In addition to the Red List of Appendix I of the Washington Convention on the Prevention of Trade in Endangered Species, CITES for short (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), Appendix II of the Bern Convention of the Council of Europe, and in their implementation within the European Union with Directive 92/43 / EEC (Fauna-Flora-Habitat Directive) in Appendix II and IV.

Part of the regional protection measures promote land use that helps rabbits to spread. The protection of the habitats suitable for lynx not only ensures the survival of the Iberian lynx, but also that of other endangered animal species. The Spanish Imperial Eagle benefits from the protective measures in favor of the Iberian lynx .

The special preservation measures include additional feeding, in which special fence cages are equipped with rabbits, hares or chickens. The fences are constructed in such a way that the lynx can go in there and hit prey, which is particularly beneficial for females with offspring who are dependent on a particularly high supply of food.

One of the greatest dangers is the expansion of the road. In 2010 alone, three dead Iberian lynx were found along the A-494, which represents a high loss of around 70 animals living in the affected area. Therefore, four more underpasses are to be built on this street, which the lynx will use.

At the same time, conservation breeding in captivity has started in the Coto de Doñana National Park and the Sierra de Andújar , which currently includes 37 lynx. After three lynx babies were born in the rearing station in the Coto de Doñana in March 2005 (the first successful breeding of the Iberian lynx in human care), the number of lynx living in captivity grew steadily; if there are 60 animals, the animals should be passed on to other rearing stations and released into the wild. With 80 young animals by mid-2010, the program was more successful than expected. In 2010, the seven Guadalmellato lynxes released in December 2009 also had three young.

With the Andalusian animals, Portugal began to breed and reintroduce them.

Systematics

According to the molecular biological investigations carried out by Stephen J. O'Brien in the 1990s, the genus of the lynx can be traced back to a group of big cats that split into several side branches over a period of around three to seven million years ago. The most recent split occurred 2.8 million years ago, with the big cats clouded leopard , lion , tiger , jaguar , leopard and snow leopard developing from one branch . From the other branch, today's lynx species of the genus Lynx and the marble cat emerged from the primeval lynx ( Lynx issiodorensis ), which was widespread around the Arctic in the Pliocene .

Today the Iberian lynx is considered a separate species within the lynx genus. It used to be grouped together with the Canadian lynx and the Eurasian lynx in a common species. However, based on fossil findings, it is known that the evolutionary line of the Iberian Iberian lynx split off in southwestern Europe in the Villa Franchian , an early phase of the Pleistocene . About L. issiodorensis issiodorensis , L. i. valdarnensis , L. pardinus spelaeus , today's Iberian lynx developed.

In art

Iberian lynx in Goya's Capricho 43, before 1799

The animal appears in Iberian paintings according to its distribution area, for example in Francisco de Goya's Capricho 43.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andre Deutsch: The Private Life of the Rabbit. RM Lockley, London 1964
  2. ↑ a b Hofrichter and Berger, p. 50.
  3. ↑ Jamshid Ibrahim: Cultural-historical word research: Persian loan property in European languages. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1991, p. 136.
  4. ↑ a b Kalb, p. 155
  5. ↑ Stubbe and Krapp, p. 1169.
  6. ↑ Stubbe and Krapp, p. 1179.
  7. ↑ For example Heinrich Rudolf Schinz: Systematic list of all mammals known to date, or Synopsis Mammalium according to Cuvier's system , Vol. 1, Solothurn 1844, p. 457.
  8. ↑ Benedikt Kopezky: Natural history of the animals in their application to trade and industry with special consideration of the European mammals. Vienna 1851, p. 142.
  9. ↑ Stubbe and Krapp, p. 1178.
  10. ↑ Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo, Palmira Saladié, Juan Marín, Antoni Canals: Expansion of the referential framework for the rabbit fossil accumulations generated by Iberian lynx , in: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 418 (2015) 1–11.
  11. ^ New Population Of Iberian Lynx Raises Hope For Species' Survival , in: Science Daily, October 26, 2007 .
  12. ↑ El lince ibérico sale del coma. In: El País November 6, 2007, p. 36.
  13. ^ Miguel Delibes, Alejandro Rodriguez, Pablo Ferreras: Action Plan for the Conservation of the Iberian Lynx (Lynx Pardinus) in Europe. Section 2.3.2. The status of the Iberian lynx in Portugal , Nature and environment, No. 111 (2000)
  14. ↑ p. 10.
  15. ↑ A report for the EU Commission believes that the government in Portugal deliberately withheld information about lynx populations in order to receive EU subsidies for the construction of dams near Odelouca (Dan Ward: The Iberian Lynx Emergency. 2004, pp. 17, 23 , 33).
  16. ↑ a b Kalb, p. 156.
  17. ↑ Stubbe and Krupp, p. 1180 f.
  18. ↑ Kalb, p. 159.
  19. ↑ Stubbe and Krapp, p. 1184.
  20. ↑ Stubbe and Krupp, p. 1183.
  21. ↑ Kalb, p. 158 f.
  22. ↑ Kalb, p. 161.
  23. ↑ El País November 6, 2007, p. 36: El lince ibérico sale del coma .
  24. ↑ Kalb, p. 166.
  25. ↑ Iberian lynx ( Memento of the original from May 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , WWF website.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wwf.org.uk
  26. ↑ a b Conservation successes overshadowed by more species declines IUCN Red List update. 23 June 2015
  27. ↑ ML Meli, V. Cattori, F. Martínez, G. López, A. Vargas and others. a .: Feline Leukemia Virus and Other Pathogens as Important Threats to the Survival of the Critically Endangered Iberian Lynx (Lynx pardinus) . In: PLoS ONE. 4 (3), 2009, p. E4744. doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0004744 .
  28. ^ Kalb, p. 163
  29. ↑ Doñana tendrá en 2011 cuatro pasos más para paliar los atropellos de linces , in: El Mundo, December 31, 2010.
  30. ↑ Confirmado el primer parto de linces reintroducidos en Guadalmellato. In: El Mnndo. June 14, 2010.
  31. ↑ El Pais November 6, 2007, p. 36: El lince ibérico sale del coma
  32. ^ Hofrichter and Berger, pp. 38 and 49
  33. ↑ Helmut C. Jacobs: El sueño de la razón produce monstruos. The structural design of chaos and order in Goya's Capricho 43. In: The eighteenth century. Journal of the German Society for Research in the 18th Century. 29 (2005), pp. 51-60; More comprehensive: Helmut C. Jacobs: The sleep of reason. Goyas Capricho 43 in visual arts, literature and music. 2006.

literature

  • Robert Hofrichter, Elke Berger: The lynx - return on quiet paws. Leopold Stocker Verlag , Graz 2004, ISBN 3-7020-1041-6 .
  • Roland Kalb: Bear, Lynx, Wolf - Persecuted, Exterminated, Returned. Leopold Stocker, Graz 2007, ISBN 978-3-7020-1146-8 .
  • El lince ibérico sale del coma. In: El País. November 6, 2007, p. 36.
  • Michael Stubbe, Franz Krapp (Hrsg.): Handbook of mammals in Europe. Vol. 5. Predatory mammals - Carnivora (Fissipedia). Part II: Mustelidae 2, Viverridae, Herpestidae, Felidae. Aula, Wiesbaden 1993, ISBN 3-89104-528-X .

Web links

Commons : Iberian Lynx  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on December 29, 2007 .