Photos and text copyright Romping and Rolling in the Rockies 2009-2017.

All photographs and text within this blog are copyrighted.

You may not copy or repost any photos or text without specific permission from the author of this blog. When in doubt, please ask.

Saturday, October 20, 2018

Bobcat and Mountain Lion: Marking and Selfie!

In September, a bobcat and a mountain lion each visited the same marking area within a few days of each other.

This time, the bobcat arrived first so he wasn't terrified by the mountain lion scent.

After sniffing a bit, he began rubbing his face and body on a small aspen trunk. He did it so gracefully and reminded me of a domestic cat rubbing against the furniture or a person's legs.

The bobcat then decided to use the trail cam to take a selfie! Or, he got intrigued by my scent on the camera. Either way, the resulting photo and footage was fun.

A few days later, a mountain lion came through the same spot. He sniffed the air, opening his mouth as he sampled the air. That's called the "Flehman Response", which often is triggered by the scent of pheromones from other cats. It lets a cat do a combination of smelling and tasting the pheromones to get more information about them. In this case, it might have been the bobcat who left the scent that caused the mountain lion to respond in this way.


Then, the mountain lion closed his eyes, perhaps contemplating the scent...

I put the footage of these two animals together into a short video. Happy Caturday!

13 comments:

  1. in the photo the mountain lion looks as though he is contemplating making a meal out of the bobcat. I love the stripes and dots on the bob cats front legs and chest and ha ha on the loud selfie. they are both beautiful cats in different ways. we just saw a coyote running after us while walking BB, a truck honked his horn to warn us or we would not have seen him until he was on us.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Whoa - that was sure up close and personal from the bobcat! These kitties are sure fun to watch!

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a great capture. That's one bit cat.

    I linked this post to Feline Friday. This is a huge Feline.

    Have a fabulous day and weekend. ♥

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ohhhhhh I need a pet bobcat...LOL Madi had a serious Cat-i-tude thank goodness she was only 10 lbs at prime and 7.25 later in life. You know divas are particular.
    Hugs Cecilia

    ReplyDelete
  5. We find the information about all the animals fascinating. So interesting watching them.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hari Om
    no question of their being feline! I was interested that the bobcat was not so very much smaller than the cougar, though lighter built. YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  7. It's always great to see the videos you capture out in the wild. I love the Bobcat selfie.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow! that was quite the selfie!
    hugs
    Hazel & Mabel

    ReplyDelete
  9. That is mighty close for sure!
    love
    tweedles

    ReplyDelete

If you are a Blogger registered user, you can skip the step asking you to verify that you are not a spammer. For posts older than 5 days, I have comment moderation turned on.

Thanks for your comments!!!!!