Puma

The cougar (Puma concolor), also puma, mountain lion, or panther, is a mammal of the Felidae family, native to the Americas. more...

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This large, solitary cat has the greatest range of any wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere, extending from Yukon in Canada to the southern Andes of South America. An adaptable, generalist species, the cougar is found in every major New World habitat type. It is the second heaviest cat in the New World, after the jaguar, and the fourth heaviest in the world, after the tiger, lion, and jaguar, although it is most closely related to smaller felines.

A capable stalk-and-ambush predator, the cougar pursues a wide variety of prey. Its primary food is ungulates such as deer, particularly in the northern part of its range, but it hunts species as small as insects and rodents. It prefers habitats with dense underbrush for stalking, but it can live in open areas.

The cougar is territorial and persists at low population densities. Individual territory sizes depend on terrain, vegetation, and abundance of prey. While it is a large predator, it is not always the dominant species in its range, as when it competes for prey with animals such as the gray wolf. It is a reclusive cat and usually avoids people. Attacks on humans remain rare, despite a recent increase in frequency.

Due to persecution as a dangerous pest animal following the European colonization of the Americas, and continuing human development of cougar habitat, populations have dropped in many parts of its historical range. In particular, the cougar was extirpated in eastern North America, except an isolated sub-population in Florida; the animal may be recolonizing parts of its former eastern territory. With its vast range, the cougar has dozens of names and various references in the mythology of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and in contemporary culture.

Naming and etymology

The cougar has over 40 names in English, of which puma and mountain lion are popular. Other names include catamount, panther, painter, and mountain screamer. In North America, "panther" is used most often to refer the Florida panther sub-population. In South America, "panther" refers to both the spotted and black color morphs of the jaguar, while it is also broadly used to refer to the Old World leopard.

"Cougar" is borrowed from the Portuguese çuçuarana, via French; the term was originally derived from the Tupi language. A current form in Brazil is suçuarana. "Puma" comes from the Quechua language of Peru.

Taxonomy and evolution

The cougar is placed in the subfamily Felinae, the small cats, while the big cats are placed within the subfamily Pantherinae. The origin of the family Felidae was in Asia approximately 11 million years ago. Unfortunately, taxonomic research on felids remains partial and much of what is known about felid evolutionary history is based on mitochondrial DNA analysis, as cats are poorly represented in the fossil record, and there are significant confidence intervals with suggested dates.

Read more at Wikipedia.org