Lynx are big cats. The adults are about a metre long. There are four surviving species: the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx, the largest), the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus), the Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), and the bobcat (Lynx rufus). Lynx issiodorensis is extinct, and probably the ancestor of the four modern species.
The Iberian lynx, (Lynx pardinus) is on the verge of extinction. They mostly eat rabbits, so the myxomatosis outbreak hit them hard, (plus the usual over-hunting, fragmentation of habitats and poaching, of course) and by the year 2000 there were only about 100 Iberian lynx left. The good news is that the conservation program is doing well, and by 2012 there were 326 of them.
