Tucson suburbs often have abundant wildlife including javelinas and coyotes, the occasional black bear and mountain lion.  A bob cat (Felis rufus or Lynx rufus) frequently visits my yard in search of a meal, usually doves and quail.  I have encountered it in the early morning when I go out for the paper.  It usually growls at me then hides behind a bush.  At other times, the bob cat ignores me because it is very focused on its prey.  It is very skilled at picking birds off the wall.

Bob cats are common in Arizona and occur in many different habitats.  They especially like the outskirts of urban areas because that’s where the prey is concentrated.  Adult bob cats weigh 15 to 35 pounds, males larger than females, and stand 18 to 24 inches tall (long legs make them look taller), and are 24 to 48 inches long.  They can jump as high as 12 feet.

Bob cats generally hunt at dawn and dusk.  During the day they may lounge in the shade of a bush in your backyard.  Normal prey includes rabbits, rodents, and birds.  They have been known to take down a deer.  They prey upon small domestic pets, poultry, and other small livestock.  They also prey upon snakes, including rattlesnakes.

Bob cats usually mate from February through March and kittens are born in April through June.  The kittens stay with the mother for about a year.  Normal life span is 10 to 15 years. Bob cats are generally solitary, but you may see a mating pair, or a mother and her kittens.

Bob cats generally do not attack humans, but they can inflict serious injury with their fangs and claws.  You should not feed wild bob cats because that makes them too comfortable around humans.  If you need to discourage a bob cat, make loud noises or use a garden hose to spray them with water.  If it happens that a female has kittens in the area, then leave them alone for a few weeks until the kittens are old enough to leave with their mother.

Here is a video produced by Arizona Game & Fish department:

Do you have a bob cat story?

See also:

Do not mess with Javelinas

Mountain Lions

Urban Coyotes prowl Tucson neighborhoods

What Color is a Black Bear?

Three Desert Squirrels

Desert Museum has a new Black Bear

Speckled Rattlesnakes

KGUN9 news (Jan. 30, 2012) reports “Pet-owners are on alert after a pack of coyotes hit one urban neighborhood over the weekend.  Some residents are even calling on wildlife officials to take action against the dangerous wild dogs.”

According the Arizona Game & Fish Department, the population density of coyotes in the urban area is twice that in the wild.  Coyotes favor residential areas, parks, and golf courses and use natural areas and washes for dispersal.  Coyotes can run at almost 40 mph and can jump a 6-foot wall.

 AZG&F says: “Coyotes are curious, clever, and adaptable. They quickly learn to take advantage of any newly discovered food source, and are often attracted to yards with abundant fruit and wildlife to eat. Coyotes will eat pet food and knock over unsecured garbage cans, or may walk along the tops of walls around homes in search of unattended dogs and cats to eat. Coyotes may consider large or loud dogs to be a threat to their territory and become aggressive toward those dogs. Coyotes have lured free-roaming dogs away from their owners to attack, and bold coyotes may attack small dogs on retractable leashes.”  Game & Fish has a short brochure about how to deal with urban coyotes here.

The coyote (Canis latrans) is a very adaptable omnivore that occurs in 49 of the 50 states. (Guess which state they don’t inhabit.)  A coyote resembles a medium-sized dog with a long, bushy black-tipped tail, big ears, and a pointy face. The fur color varies from grayish to light brown, with a buff or white underbelly. You’ll never see a fat coyote in the wild. Mark Twain wrote: “The coyote is a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always hungry.” Wiry and with long, slender legs and small feet, a desert coyote usually weighs only 15 to 25 pounds. The tracks are much smaller than those of a domestic dog of the same size.  Coyotes will eat anything from road-killed carrion to cactus fruit, mesquite beans, seeds, plants, and meat. They hunt small animals such as rodents, rabbits, birds, snakes, insects — especially grasshoppers and crickets — and any injured animal they can subdue according to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum staff.

Coyotes generally hunt singly or in pairs around a core area that contains their den.  During the breeding season, coyotes will scent-mark their territory with urine and by scraping the ground to leave a visual mark.  They will defend their territory during breeding season, February to March, with pups born in April and May.

 Coyotes, which some call “sound dogs,” typically howl at dusk as they begin their hunt.  They also howl to communicate with neighbors and family members.  Within neighborhoods, coyotes howling usually sets off the neighborhood dogs.

See also:

Creatures of the Night: The Bats

Creatures of the Night: Kangaroo Rat

Creatures of the Night: Grasshopper Mouse

Desert Museum has a new Black Bear

Do not mess with Javelinas

Mountain Lions

New Prairie Dogs at Desert Museum

New Coatis at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

Pack Rats are Desert Archaeologists

The Urban Coyote and a Creation Story

Three Desert Squirrels

What Color is a Black Bear?

Jaguar sighted near Tucson

Passion flowers (genus Passiflora), so called because the flower structure is interpreted by some to symbolize the passion of Christ (see Botany.com), are mainly tropical South American plants with about 350- to 400 species. The flowers occur on climbing vines. Thirteen species occur in North American and three species are native to Arizona. There is some indication that an Arizona species is carnivorous.

I took the photo below at the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum. The plant occurs near the art gallery. It is Passiflora incarnata or incense passion flower, which is actually a tropical variety. The flower is about five inches across.

The Arizona passion flower (Passiflora arizonica) is much smaller, only about one to two inches across. See “Southeastern Arizona Wildflowers” for photos and a description. Arizona Game & Fish Department has a detailed description here. The two other Arizona varieties are Passiflora mexicana (which smell like mothballs), and Passiflora bryonioides.

The Arizona passion flower produces fruit about one inch in diameter which go from green to yellow to red. According to Southeastern Arizona Wildflowers, these fruits are edible, but contain little pulp. Another name for the Arizona varieties is “fetid passion flower” because crushed leaves give off a fetid smell. The leaves and other green parts of the plant are poisonous. “This unusual passion flower may be carnivorous, or at least protocarnivorous (on the evolutionary path to becoming carnivorous in the future). The bracts surrounding the flowers and fruit have glands that secrete both a sticky fluid to trap insects and digestive enzymes to digest them.”

Writing more generally of passion flowers, Botany.com says: “Some varieties [including the incense variety] produce edible passion fruits, which vary in shape and size. They contain a jelly-like pulp embedded with numerous seeds. These fruits are only produced where the summer-time temperature is a minimum of 60º.”

Passion flower vines generally bloom from May to December.

See also:

Edible Desert Plants – Barrel Cactus Fruit

Jojoba oil, good on the outside, bad on the inside

Mesquite Trees Provide Food and a Pharmacy