The Canadian lynx is a medium-sized wild cat. Its most distinguishable features include the triangular ears with black fur sticking out, its long hindlimbs, and large paws. 

Canadian lynx have long, dense, light tan/grey fur to help them camouflage in their snowy environment. Their characteristics like the dense fur, long legs, and large paws are all adaptations to help them thrive, hunt, and navigate efficiently in the snow. In fact, they have a broad toe that is set at a wide-angle, which aids in the distribution of their weight and allows them to stay on top of the snow. This makes hunting in heavier snow at higher elevations easier.

The Canadian lynx measures 2 to 4 feet in length and about 2 feet tall. Females, smaller than males, weigh an average of 19 pounds, with males weighing around 25 pounds. 

The Canadian lynx lives primarily in the boreal forests of Canada and Alaska. They also have been known to live in mountainous regions in the United States, like in the southern Rocky Mountains and the Blue Mountains, also in the Great Lakes Region and New England.

Canadian lynx have been recorded to go up to an elevation of about 14,000 feet with a range that varies anywhere from 3 to 300 square miles! The species thrives in dense cold forests. It has been shown that the population follows that of the snowshoe hare, their main prey.

Canadian lynx are carnivorous animals that have a small preference for what they eat. Their primary prey is that of snowshoe hare, which makes up anywhere from 35 to 97% of their diet! The lynx kill about 1 hare every 2 to 3 days.

When they are unable to find snowshoe hares, the lynx turns to killing other animals like ducks, mice, squirrels, caribou, Dall’s sheep, and occasionally will feed on plants and grasses. Canadian lynxes mostly hunt at night, when hares are active, and rely on their sight and hearing to find prey.

The mating season of the Canadian lynx is rather short, only lasting from March to early April. Before giving birth, the females are known to make dens using thick brush around shrubs and trees.

After a gestation period of about 8 to 10 weeks, the female gives birth to anywhere from 1 to 8 kittens, though the litter size usually is about 2 to 4 kittens. However, their litter sizes depend on the availability of prey. Kittens weigh about 7 ounces when they are born and are blind for the first 2 weeks. After about 12 weeks, they venture from the den and leave their mother at around 10 months of age. 

The Canadian lynx and snowshoe hare have been so tightly linked that the fluctuations in their populations follow an extremely similar pattern. When hare populations decrease, so does that of the lynx, resulting in fewer kittens being born and/or surviving.

Canadian lynx are primarily nocturnal creatures, and also solitary. The species is very mysterious and hard to find in the wild, resulting in the comparison of the lynx to ghosts.