The remains of one of Ohio’s most elusive predators was found by a passing motorist on Upper Arlington’s doorstep last week.

A trapper was driving to work on Feb. 1 when he spotted what he thought was a dead coyote, said Ohio Division of Wildlife Franklin County officer Brad Kiger. The man pulled over to the berm of state Route 315 at Henderson Road to investigate, and discovered the body of a male bobcat that had apparently been hit by a passing car.

“It was a little unusual,” Kiger said. “Bobcats are on the rise and have been for quite some time, but they’re something that’s found more in eastern and southern Ohio. I get a lot of calls from Franklin County, from people thinking they’ve seen a bobcat, but all of them turn out to either be coyotes or large house cats.”

Ohio Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Bethany McCorkle the bobcat weighed 25 pounds, larger than the average size for a bobcat. A bobcat sighting has not been confirmed in Franklin County since 1997, but that date only marks when the department began collecting data, she said.

Officials conducted a necropsy of the animal, partly to determine if it was wild or a pet, McCorkle said. An answer to that question wasn’t found, however, as the bobcat’s stomach was empty.

Originally thought to be female, the cat proved to be male. Although not proof that the cat was wild, Kiger said many bobcats kept in captivity have been de-clawed. This cat had all of its claws, he said.

Kiger said that although difficult to tell exactly, the bobcat appeared to have been hit less than a week before it was found.

Reports of bobcat sightings have been on the rise in Ohio since 2000. According to ODNR’s records, fewer than 10 sightings were documented in 2000; in 2010, there were 301 unverified sightings and 106 verified reports.

The best places in the state to catch a glimpse of the cat are in heavily forested areas of Monroe, Belmont, Morgan, Noble and Washington counties.

But even Ohioans who spend a lot of time in the forests can go their entire lives without ever spotting one, Kiger said.

“They’re a very elusive animal, and they like hilly country, big mature woods,” he said. “Every now and then, a bow hunter will see one, and nowadays a lot more people are setting up trail cameras, so they’ve being spotted on those.”

Kiger said the area around Henderson and 315 where the bobcat was found doesn’t really meet that description.

“Right through there, there’s really not a lot of cover, other than up and down the river,” he said. “If you were to look for an actual travel way, once you get a little farther north there are some pretty good greenspaces, with some metro parks and larger tracts of land. Whether or not it was following the river, we just don’t know.”

Having a bobcat verified in Franklin County might be a new one, Kiger said, but he’s seen his fair share of interesting animals in central Ohio.

“A lot of the time, you’ll see some odd things pop up around the corridor,” he said. “We’ve had badgers reported on the West Side last year, and there has been a black bear that came through Franklin County. There are river otters. I’ve had a couple sightings of snowy owls down around Rickenbacker.”