Camera traps record Iberian lynxes soaking rabbit prey

The story in brief

What you need to know

• The study describes prey soaking as an unexpected behaviour recorded in wild Iberian lynxes. All reported events involved female lynxes and rabbit prey at water troughs.123
• Researchers counted eight events involving five females and five troughs. The records came from ongoing camera-trap monitoring at the El Castañar estate in the Montes de Toledo.23
• The evidence varies in strength: cameras directly showed the immersion in four events, while the other four were inferred from sequences of camera records.2
• Hydrating cubs or helping them move to solid food are proposed explanations, not demonstrated functions. The paper’s rabbit-soaking trials were exploratory and not replicated.13
• The lynxes carried soaked rabbits away from the trough. The study reports no feeding there, so the records do not establish that the prey were soaked immediately before being eaten.3

Conservation context

Why this matters

The records add a previously undocumented behaviour to knowledge of Iberian lynxes, but also show the limits of interpreting a small set of camera-trap observations. Keeping the observed behaviour separate from possible explanations is important when using it to understand the species.123

The developing story

What happens next

The reporting identifies no planned follow-up study. Further evidence would be needed to clarify the behaviour’s function, whether it occurs in other Iberian lynx populations, and whether it is learned or arises independently.23

Established evidence

What we know

• The camera-trap monitoring at El Castañar ran from 2014 to 2025; records of prey soaking began in 2020.3
• The reported observations were made at five water troughs in the Montes de Toledo, central Spain.23
• The observed prey were rabbits, and the study says the lynxes transported them away from the troughs.3
• Smithsonian Magazine’s account describes the proposed explanations as hypotheses and notes that the study’s trials were exploratory.13

Open questions

What we don't know

• The observations do not establish what purpose, if any, soaking serves in the wild.13
• It is not known from these records whether the behaviour occurs in other Iberian lynx populations or has only been detected in the Montes de Toledo.23
• The reporting does not show whether lynxes learned the behaviour from one another or developed it independently. Kinship and proximity suggest a possibility, but there is no direct evidence of social learning.23
• The camera records do not establish that every reported event showed immersion directly: four of the eight were inferred from sequences.2

Source coverage

Read the reporting