Lynx fail to catch hare in three of every four chases
Evidence
Given the hare’s speed and agility, it’s no surprise that lynx very often fail to catch them. Footprints in fresh snow tell the stories of these encounters, revealing where each hare was flushed, how far it ran, and who won the race. In one study following hundreds of miles of lynx tracks over five years, the cats caught their prey in only one out of every four chases; in a similar study lynx captured a hare only once every four or five days—barely enough to sustain their body mass. Even in good years most lynx hunts end in vain. In bad years, lynx fare much worse. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 68
Categorization
- QUESTION: Why does selection not make lynx dramatically better hunters, or does the hare’s counteradaptation keep pace? Likely answered in a later chapter on arms races.
- XREF: The low catch rate is a concrete data point for the broader claim that predator weapons face severe performance limits — parallels the cost/failure discussions in previous chapters.