Albino bobcat pictures are as rare as black bobcat pictures. They are so rare that one website became confused and presented a white Maine Coon as an albino bobcat! You can see it below. And I must say there is a certain similarity.

“WOW!” This was sent in by Doug Smith from West Virginia. He called up this Albino Bobcat. You don’t see that everyday.”

One of the photos – the best and most authentic one – shows a bow hunter proudly showing off his kill, an albino bobcat (or is it just pure white – there is a difference?). He showed the picture on a hunting website and all his colleagues were incredibly impressed, “what a special feeling it must have been” etc.. None of them considered the irony of killing a very rare creature making it even rarer. Hunting is a very selfish, self-centred pastime. It is a very sad photograph as far as I am concerned.

This is labelled an albino bobcat. I don’t think we can take it on trust that it is. It might be white and the genes creating white are different to those creating albino. Photo: Public domain.

Albino bobcats are incredibly rare it seems to me. The premier book¹ on the wild cats says:

“Both melanistic and albino bobcats have been reported; a Texas zoo kept an albino bobcat for several years.”

The reference work for the report of an albino bobcat comes from a 1978 book: The bobcat of North America by SP Young and published by Lincoln University of Nebraska Press. 1978! I don’t know of any other reference to such a rare cat except Sarah Hartwell (messybeast.com) says: “There have been increasing numbers of reports of albino bobcats”. She does not elaborate on that statement.

Apparently the gene (identified as ‘C‘) is a recessive. I guess it had to be as this is a rare cat.

The picture below is of a white Maine Coon described as an albino bobcat.

White Maine Coon not an albino bobcat as described on one website. Picture: public domain.

Can bobcats be black?

Ref: 1 – Wild Cats of the World by Mel and Fiona Sunquist.