<p>This weekend kicks off National Geographic's <a href="http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/wild/big-cat-week/">Big Cat Week</a>. Though lions, tigers, and cheetahs occupy the spotlight, their <a href="http://bigcatswildcats.com/small-wild-cats-list/">smaller cousins</a> deserve some attention too.</p> <p>We reached deep into our archives to pull up portraits of a sampling of the 30 small cat species. First up: A nighttime image from 1906 of a <a href="http://ecos.fws.gov/speciesProfile/profile/speciesProfile.action?spcode=A073">Canada lynx</a> (<em>Lynx canadensis</em>) sitting primly on the shore of Loon Lake in Ontario, Canada.</p> <p>These 11- to 37-pound (5 to 17 kilogram) cats live in boreal forests across Canada and down into the northern United States. The animals subsist mainly on snowshoe hares, although they also go after squirrels and beavers.</p> <p>The International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List <a href="http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/12518/0">classifies the Canada lynx</a> as a species of "least concern." However, populations are less stable in eastern Canada and the contiguous U.S., so the lynx is listed as "threatened" under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. (See <a href="http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/tags/bigcats/">pictures of big cats</a> on National Geographic's Your Shot.)</p> <p><em>—By Jane J. Lee, photo gallery by Kathy Moran</em></p> <p><em>Tune in to Nat Geo WILD's <a href="http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/wild/big-cat-week/">Big Cat Week</a> through December 5. Big Cat Week is part of the <a href="http://causeanuproar.org/">Big Cats Initiative,</a> a long-term commitment by the National Geographic Society to save big cats around the world. Meet National Geographic's big cat experts in a <a href="https://plus.google.com/events/c98cuaj5d8nb844vutfsbk5t6c4">Google+ Hangout</a> on December 3 at 1 p.m. ET and share your thoughts at #BigCats.</em></p>