this cat...has all the markings..so to speak
this is a bobcat tail..
It has the typical markings of a Florida bobcat- usually Florida’s animal’s fur is noticeably lighter, spots faded, and shorter than northern counterparts due to heat and sun exposure. An everglades cat will likely be much lighter than a cypress dome cat from the west coast, too. I’m a wildlife artist and paint these things all the time from pelts. Some bobcats will be heavily marked, others sparsely marked, because they are all individuals, and their markings and facial structure and even eye color varies with age as well.
If you’ve ever noticed, white tail deer in summer are quite reddish and their hair is short. In winter the same deer will sport a much thicker, longer coat that is grayish brown rather than reddish. That animals have winter coats and summer coats is well known among hunters, and if you’ve ever worked at a processor or tannery you would have noticed the range of color and markings is extremely wide. A southern deer can be spotted with bare antlers yet still be in the reddish summer coat, while a northern deer will be in “winter gray” when its antlers are bare of velvet.
If I painted a northern bobcat in a scene with palmettos it would look very wrong.