Cougar
The cougar , also called puma, mountain lion, catamount, and panther, is a large small cat native to the Americas. It inhabits North, Central and South America, making it the most widely distributed wild, terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere, and one of the most widespread in the world. Its range spans Yukon, British Columbia and Alberta in Canada, the Rocky Mountains and areas in the western United States. Further south, its range extends through Mexico to the Amazon rainforest and the southern Andes Mountains in Patagonia. It is an adaptable generalist species, occurring in most American habitat types. It prefers habitats with dense underbrush and rocky areas for stalking but also lives in open areas.
The cougar is largely solitary. Its activity pattern varies from diurnality and cathemerality to crepuscularity and nocturnality between protected and non-protected areas, and is apparently correlated with the presence of other predators, prey species, livestock and humans. It is an ambush predator that pursues a wide variety of prey. Ungulates, particularly deer, are its primary prey, but it also hunts rodents. It is territorial and lives at low population densities. Individual home ranges depend on terrain, vegetation and abundance of prey. While large, it is not always the dominant apex predator in its range, yielding prey to other predators. It is reclusive and mostly avoids people. Fatal attacks on humans are rare but increased in North America as more people entered cougar habitat and built farms.
The cougar is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. Intensive hunting following European colonization of the Americas and ongoing human development into cougar habitat has caused populations to decline in most parts of its historical range. In particular, the eastern cougar population is considered to be mostly locally extinct in eastern North America since the early 20th century, with the exception of the isolated Florida panther subpopulation.
Naming and etymology
The cougar holds the Guinness record for the animal with the greatest number of names, with over 40 in English alone. The word cougar is borrowed from the Portuguese çuçuarana, via French; it was originally derived from the Tupi language. A current form in Brazil is suçuarana. In the 17th century, Georg Marcgrave named it cuguacu ara. Marcgrave's rendering was reproduced in 1648 by his associate Willem Piso. Cuguacu ara was then adopted by John Ray in 1693. In 1774, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon converted cuguacu ara to cuguar, which was later modified to "cougar" in English. Gaelic, or Erse, has similar words, including Scottish Gaelic cugar and cugarbhad. The usual Gaelic for cat is "cat".The name puma is the most common name now used in the global scientific literature. Puma is the common name used in Latin America and most parts of Europe and is occasionally used in the United States. The first use of puma in English dates to 1777, introduced from Spanish from the Quechua language.
In the United States, the name mountain lion is commonly used, and in Canada, the name cougar is most commonly used. The term mountain lion was first seen in writing in 1858. Puma concolor is not a true lion of the genus Panthera and cannot roar, nor is its habitat restricted to mountainous regions. The name catamount, a shortening of name "cat of the mountain", has also been in English use for Puma concolor and other wild cats since at least 1664. Panther is often used synonymously with cougar, puma or mountain lion. The name painter is also sometimes used instead of panther, mostly in the southern United States.
Taxonomy and evolution
Felis concolor was the scientific name proposed by Carl Linnaeus in 1771 for a cat with a long tail from Brazil. It was placed in the genus Puma by William Jardine in 1834. This genus is part of the Felinae. The cougar is most closely related to the jaguarundi and the cheetah.Subspecies
Following Linnaeus's first scientific description of the cougar, 32 cougar zoological specimens were described and proposed as subspecies until the late 1980s. Genetic analysis of cougar mitochondrial DNA indicates that many of these are too similar to be recognized as distinct at a molecular level but that only six phylogeographic groups exist. The Florida panther samples showed a low microsatellite variation, possibly due to inbreeding. Following this research, the authors of Mammal Species of the World recognized the following six subspecies in 2005:- P. c. concolor includes the synonyms bangsi, incarum, osgoodi, soasoaranna, sussuarana, soderstromii, suçuaçuara, and wavula
- P. c. puma includes the synonyms araucanus, concolor, patagonica, pearsoni, and puma
- P. c. couguar includes arundivaga, aztecus, browni, californica, floridana, hippolestes, improcera, kaibabensis, mayensis, missoulensis, olympus, oregonensis, schorgeri, stanleyana, vancouverensis, and youngi
- P. c. costaricensis
- P. c. anthonyi includes acrocodia, borbensis, capricornensis, concolor, greeni, and nigra
- P. c. cabrerae includes hudsonii and puma proposed by Marcelli in 1922
, the Cat Classification Taskforce of the Cat Specialist Group recognizes only two subspecies as valid:
- P. c. concolor in South America, possibly excluding the region northwest of the Andes
- P. c. couguar in North and Central America and possibly northwestern South America
Evolution
The cheetah lineage is suggested by some studies to have diverged from the Puma lineage in the Americas and migrated back to Asia and Africa, while other research suggests the cheetah diverged in the Old World itself. A high level of genetic similarity has been found among North American cougar populations, suggesting they are all fairly recent descendants of a small ancestral group. Culver et al. propose the original North American cougar population was locally extinct during the Pleistocene extinctions some 10,000 years ago, when other large mammals, such as Smilodon, also disappeared. North America was then repopulated by South American cougars. Cougars in North America might have survived the Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinction due to their greater dietary flexibility as evidenced by dental microwear texture analysis.
A coprolite identified as from a cougar was excavated in Argentina's Catamarca Province and dated to 17,002–16,573 years old. It contained Toxascaris leonina eggs. This finding indicates that the cougar and the parasite have existed in South America since at least the Late Pleistocene. The oldest fossil record of a cougar in South America is a partial skull from the late Calabrian age.
Characteristics
The head of the cougar is round, and the ears are erect. Its powerful forequarters, neck, and jaw serve to grasp and hold large prey. It has four retractile claws on its hind paws and five on its forepaws, of which one is a dewclaw. The larger front feet and claws are adaptations for clutching prey.The cougar is slender and agile. It is the fourth largest cat species; adults stand about tall at the shoulders. Adult males are around long from nose to tail tip, and females average, with overall ranges between nose to tail suggested for the species in general. Of this length, the tail typically accounts for. Males generally weigh. Females typically weigh between. Cougar size is smallest close to the equator and larger towards the poles.
The largest recorded cougar, shot in 1901, weighed ; claims of and have been reported, though they were probably exaggerated. Male cougars in North America average, while the average female in the same region averages about. On average, adult male cougars in British Columbia weigh and adult females, though several male cougars in British Columbia weighed between.
Depending on the locality, cougars can be smaller or bigger than jaguars but are less muscular and not as powerfully built, so on average, their weight is less. Whereas the size of cougars tends to increase as much as distance from the equator increases, which crosses the northern portion of South America, jaguars are generally smaller north of the Amazon River in South America and larger south of it. For example, while South American jaguars are comparatively large, and may exceed, North American jaguars in Mexico's Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve weigh approximately, about the same as female cougars.
Cougar coloring is plain tawny, ranging from silvery-grey to reddish with lighter patches on the underbody, including the jaws, chin, and throat. Kittens are spotted and born with blue eyes and rings on their tails; juveniles are pale, and dark spots remain on their flanks. A leucistic individual was seen in Serra dos Órgãos National Park in Rio de Janeiro in 2013 when it was recorded by a camera trap, indicating that pure white individuals do exist within the species, though they are extremely rare.
The cougar has large paws and proportionally the largest hind legs in Felidae, allowing for great leaping and powerful short sprints. It can leap from the ground up to high into a tree.
It is the largest of the Felinae that is capable of purring.