'It's a genetic mutation,' says Yukon biologist of 1st recorded sighting of a black lynx

It's fairly common for the Yukon's Environment Department to receive reports of various wildlife spotted around the territory.

But one report from August 2020, which recently came to the public eye, stood out to Yukon government biologist Tom Jung — it was the first-ever recorded sighting of a black lynx in Canada.

The lynx was seen in the Whitehorse area and it was captured on video by someone living there. That footage made its way to Jung who reported it in an article published in October in the scientific journal Mammalia.

"We get a lot of reports of things that people see, and that's how we get a lot of our information is things that trappers and hunters and other people travelling on the land see," he said.

In this case, it sparked his curiosity. He said he was aware of a few rare melanistic — dark coloured — bobcats seen in New Brunswick and Florida, but he wasn't sure about dark coloured lynx.

This species typically has a silver greyish coat in winter and reddish brown in summer with dark spots, and black hairs on the tips of their tails and ears. Occasionally, a rare pallid "colourmorph" has been seen, which could suggest partial albinism. Normally, lynx are true to their colour, Jung's research says.

This lynx, however, happened to have a black coat with whitish grey guard hairs throughout, along with whitish grey hairs in the facial ruff and on its back. According to Jung's research, there are only a small number of records of "coat colour polymorphisms" in lynx. 

Jung did some digging on unusually-coloured lynx, and spoke with several lynx experts.

And, what did he find?

"Nobody had ever heard or seen of a dark coloured lynx," he said. "So I thought, wow, this is something interesting, and we should share it with the scientific community."

He said it's unlikely the lynx had rolled in mud or a soot before it was videoed, since the colouring comes across uniform.

"It's a genetic mutation," he explained. "It's not particularly unusual in the animal world to have what they call melanistic coat," he said, "but it's just really rare for a lynx."

Melanism is a genetic trait that displays a black-coloured pigment in fur and can often be found in species like squirrels and jaguars. It's also been recorded in several bobcats, mostly in Florida.

While the lynx's fur in the video is unusual, its behaviour — which shows it wandering through someone's yard seemingly quite calm — is pretty typical.

"They're not particularly wary of people. They are wilderness animals, but when they encounter people I don't think they're too bothered," he said of it being in someone's yard.

Jung said while the reason behind the wild feline's unusual coat is not known, he thinks it could be what's considered a maladaptive — or not helpful — feature since camouflaging while hunting in the winter with such a dark coat would most likely be tricky for it.

"To be a black lynx is probably quite disadvantageous," Jung explained.

"You could imagine being on a snowy landscape, like we have here now in the Yukon, and trying to sneak up on a snowshoe hare that's really still and paying a lot of attention … A black lynx is going to stick out and they're going to lose a lot of advantage in terms of hunting."

Possible one-off

Jung said for animals in general, in some cases it's possible a change in colour, particularly getting darker colouring could be beneficial when landscapes are altered for example, due to climate change.

"We're gonna get more … boreal forests burned. And that being darker coloured, black, in particular, in landscape that's largely burned forests helps animals blend in amongst charred logs and things," Jung said.

Meanwhile in other cases, like as forests thin out, being lighter in fur colour could be best for survival.

"There has been some talk that in areas where the forest is more open or is opening up, that it doesn't make a lot of sense to be black … being a lighter colour, particularly brown, may make more sense — [an animal] wouldn't stand out on the landscape," he said.

"We really don't know the answers, but there's lots of ideas and hypotheses out there."

What is "quite possible," he said, is the sighting being something of a one-off.

"One colleague of mine is working on genetics of lynx, and they figure they have samples of 40,000 lynx," he said.

"And they've never seen a black Lynx. Again, doesn't mean that this is the first one or only one. But it is extremely rare."