'It's a genetic mutation,' 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.




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