Buckstalker, You are missing your own point........in Livbucks picture it's not a matter of the tail being completely hidden under a sitting animal.
You clearly have a slightly quartering view of the animals butt and the tail is obviously NOT THERE. The tail on that animal is clearly visible and it's not even remotely the diameter of a cougar's.
You could not hide a cougar's tail in that picture. Like I said , even if it was stapled to the left side of that animal's body you would still see the base diameter in a clear bulge.
If you look very closely I think you can even see the slight upturned tip of the bobcat's black tipped tail.........and you can definitely see the black mottled pattern starting down the inside of it's far side back leg under the tail.
That animal is CLEARLY a Bobcat. You can see the traingular tuft of fur on it's face angling down under and behind it's chin as well.

Another thing to look at is the ear size relative to the overall size of the animal's head.......the3 pics I posted of Bobcats, Livbuck's pic and the other 2 examples I posted show how the ear length vs. head diameteris very much proportionately different than the pictures of the cougars posted below. A Cougar's ears appear much smaller in relationship to it's head size vs. a Bobcat.

People can imagine what they want that's their perogative , but the clear photographic evidence (Short thin tail, Black spotting on rump and belly as well as facial tuft tip, the appearance of a triangular facial tuft, ear size relative to head size, and geography) all point to an obvious picture of a Bobcat.