What's for Dinner? The Diet of the Snowy Owl and Canada Lynx

The Canada Lynx has evolved into a hare-hunting expert. All of it's techniques are uniquely specialized to hunt for snowshoe hares. The most common hunting strategy used is stalking and rushing at their prey. Another strategy is to make an "ambush bed" near commonly used hare trails, and pounce when a hare passes by. Lynx eat fresh-killed prey rather than caching it for later. Hunting is most often done in solitary, but also can be done in mother-kit groups, where one will flush out the prey, and another will kill it. However, this strategy does not always prove to be effective (19). 

The digestive anatomy of the Canada Lynx is typical for felines, and can be modeled by the digestive tract for the domestic cat Felis catus. 46 cm., taken from Stevens& Hume, 1995 (3).

After catching it's prey, the Lynx wil use it's teeth to rip off pieces of meat. It will produce saliva in it's mouth to begin digestion, and then food will enter the esophagus to pass down into the stomach. Chemical digestion occurs in the stomach with it's low pH and many enzymes to digest protein material. Stomach acid of the Lynx is more acidic than that of humans, and can even soften bone. After passing through the stomach, ingested material then moves into the duodenum, where most of the digestion occus when food interacts with bile secreted from the pancreas and liver. The pH is raised and digesiton continues. Amino acids and fats are absorbed in the small intestine, and the rest of the material moves into the large intestine where water reabsorption takes place. After this, the wastes are excreted throgh the rectum and anus. This whole process takes 20 hours (22).