The four lynx species diverge sharply in diet. The Iberian lynx depends on rabbits and the Canada lynx on snowshoe hares, but the Eurasian lynx is a generalist that specialises upward. In Scandinavia, the Alps and the Carpathians, roe deer, chamois and young red deer make up the bulk of prey by biomass, animals that can weigh two or three times as much as the cat.
The method is ambush. The lynx stalks close in cover, rushes over a short distance and takes a throat hold, then caches the carcass and returns to it over several days. A single roe deer can feed an adult for the better part of a week, which shapes both kill rate and movement.
The reputation of lynx as significant livestock predators is uneven and easily overstated. Losses concentrate on free-ranging sheep in a few regions, notably parts of Norway, and are low where sheep are enclosed or guarded. Attributing every carcass found in lynx country to lynx has repeatedly proven wrong where kills were examined properly.