BULLETIN FLORIDA STATE MUSEUM VOL. 33(4)


 The distribution of various types of marks within bobcat home ranges
 supports the usual conclusion from home range configuration and other
 evidence that bobcats are territorial. Krebs and Davies (1978) recognized any
 occupied area as a "territory" whenever individuals or groups are spaced out
 more than would be expected from a random occupation of suitable habitats
 and when this spacing is due to interactions between these individuals or
 groups. By this definition, bobcat home ranges can be considered intra-sexual
 territories. Gorman (1980) noted that among mammalian carnivores
 non-territorial species mark throughout their home range, whereas territorial
 species mark more intensively at the borders of their ranges. He suggests that
 animals mark their range in order to orient themselves and that boundary
 marking is a specialized form of range marking, serving either to inform the
 animal doing the marking that it is at the edge of its territory or to warn and
 repel conspecifics. Marking also may have other functions, including
 providing information on an individual's identity, age, sex, reproductive state,
 or social status (see Leyhausen 1979, MacDonald 1980, Wemmer and Scow
 1977 for further discussion).
 Evidence of bobcats using marking to advertise the home range boundary
was first presented by Marshall (1969). Bailey (1972) and McCord (in McCord
and Cardoza 1982) provided further substantiation of this function of marking.
Our observations on Florida bobcats add additional support to the hypothesis
that one of the functions of marking is to inhibit bobcats from trespassing on
another individual's home range. Bobcats deposited exposed feces and made
fecal and urine scrapes more frequently at the periphery of the home range
than in the interior, which suggests that this type of marking behavior was
related to the maintenance of range boundaries. In addition, as home range
boundaries shifted, there was a corresponding shift in the locus of marking,
and bobcats regularly visited sites on their range boundaries and "refreshed"
older marks with new ones. Type of deposit at a site was not necessarily
consistent, as bobcats would often alternate between fecal-scraping and
urine-scraping at the same location. Adjacent pairs regularly visited these sites
and added their own deposits to them. Generally, feces tended to begin
deteriorating after about a week, especially during the rainy season and when
scarab beetles were active. Urine odor was strongest the first few days after
the deposit. These observations suggest a need for bobcats to regularly renew
levels of whatever substances might be used in advertising their status, and that
neighboring individuals periodically inspected sites for information concerning
other depositors. In this regard, it may be significant that bobcats were not
known to invade the vacated ranges of same-sexed bobcats immediately after
their death. Rather, 5-14 days elapsed before invaders were detected within
the vacated ranges. The observed time-lag before invasion was about the same
as the time taken for feces to deteriorate and for urine odors to diminish. In
the case of adult female F3 who abandoned her home range to her daughter