Lynx are about twice the size of a big house cat - roughly the size of a Labrador, but lighter and with much longer legs. The males can weigh up to 30 kilograms. Their huge paws act like snowshoes, spreading their weight on top of deep snow when they hunt in winter.
Lynx are masters of being hidden. Their fur is dappled with darker spots, so they look like sun and shadow through the branches. They are mostly active at dawn, dusk and night. A walker can spend a whole lifetime hiking in Romanian forests and never see a lynx - even though the lynx may have watched them pass.
Their main food is roe deer - a small woodland deer about the same size as the lynx itself. The lynx waits motionless on a fallen log or low branch, then pounces. They are not built for long chases like cheetahs - they are sit-and-spring hunters, using surprise rather than speed.
The tufts on a lynx's ears probably help it hear better, working a bit like little antennas. Mother lynx have one to four kittens in spring, hidden in a den among rocks or roots. The kittens stay with their mum through their first winter, learning to hunt, before going off on their own.