# Cougars

Cougars (Puma concolor) are the largest cats native to the Americas. The cougar (also known as the puma, mountain lion, panther, catamount, catamountain, painter, Mexican lion, or red tiger) was given the name Felis concolor by Linnaeus. However, molecular genetic studies indicate that that the cougar belongs to a genus more closely related to the jaguarundi (Herpailurus yagouaroundi) and to the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) than to the domestic cat (Felis catus). The Cherokee name for the cougar is Klandagi (i.e., "Lord of the Forest"). According to the traditional Cherokee religion, the cougar and the owl were the only animals able to stay awake during the seven days of creation by the Great Spirit.

## Quotes

* After a stalk of a few minutes across a talus slope, puma crouched behind bush and waited until nearest deer came within 5 ft. Puma caught its hindquarters with its front paws probably because tall brush prevented a leap. The deer was forced to its haunches and after struggling downhill for about 70 ft. stumbled; and deer and puma rolled over and over out of sight into clump of shrubs where it was killed. Puma carried deer for about 50 yds., dragged it at least another 80 yds. Liver eaten and uneaten stomach and intestines removed from hole in deer's side next to ribs. Buried carcass under leaves and weeds.
** Allen E. Anderson, A Critical Review of Literature on Puma (Felis Concolor). Special Report Number 54. Colorado Division of Wildlife. 1983. p. 90.
* ... After the near elimination of mountain lions from the United States in the first half of the 20th century, protective laws beginning in the mid-1960s allowed them to reestablish or increase their populations across the West. Mountain lions typically occur in topographically varied habitats. Their rugged habitat is one of the main reasons that lions are seldom seen. They live in areas with high prey densities and enough vegetation and topography for good hunting cover. Maternal females usually select dens in rock outcrops, dense shrubs, or under conifers well out of sight of people.
** Tim W. Clark and Lyn Munno, "Chapter 3. Mountain lion management: Resolving public conflict". Coexisting with large carnivores: Lessons from Greater Yellowstone. 2005. pp. 71–98. (quote from p. 74; edited by edited by Tim W. Clark, Murray B. Rutherford, and Denise Casey)
* ... any one may have a fancy, and a squirrel has a right to make up his mind touching a catamount.
** James Fenimore Cooper, line of dialogue by Natty Bumppo in the novel The Deerslayer p. 8
* Puma concolor, a large American cat species, occupies the most extensive range of any New World terrestrial mammal, spanning 100 degrees of latitude from the Canadian Yukon to the Straits of Magellan. ... Genomic DNA specimens from 315 pumas of specified geographic origin (261 contemporary and 54 museum specimens) were collected for molecular genetic and phylogenetic analyses of three mitochondrial gene sequences (16S rRNA, ATPase-8, and NADH-5) plus composite microsatellite genotypes (10 feline loci). ... The marked uniformity of mtDNA and a reduction in microsatellite allele size expansion indicates that North American pumas derive from a recent (late Pleistocene circa 10,000 years ago) replacement and recolonization by a small number of founders who themselves originated from a centrum of puma genetic diversity in eastern South America 200,000-300,000 years ago. The recolonization of North American pumas was coincident with a massive late Pleistocene extinction event that eliminated 80% of large vertebrates in North America and may have extirpated pumas from that continent as well.
** Melanie Culver, Warren E. Johnson, Jill Pecon-Slattery, and Stephen J. O'Brien, (May 2000)"Genomic ancestry of the American puma (Puma concolor)". Journal of Heredity 91 (3): 186–197.
* The mountain lion is large and slender and has short, muscular limbs ... The pelage is of medium texture, characteristically short year-round in tropical forms, but growing longer and thicker in the winter in temperate forms. The young are black-spotted in three irregular dorsal lines and transverse rows These spots are vivid up to the animal's third or fourth month of life. The eye color is blue in young kittens and turns greyish brown to golden in adults. The pupils are round.
** Mary Jean P. Currier, (8 April 1983)"Felis concolor". Mammalian Species (200): 1–7. DOI:10.2307/3503951.
* Mountain lions (Puma concolor) were previously endemic across Pennsylvania. The species was officially declared regionally extinct in 2011 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, although the last time that a mountain lion was observed east of the Mississippi River was in Maine in 1938, excluding the current population that resides in Florida. The Northeastern population of P. concolor has been almost nonexistent since the early 1800s, most likely due to targeted hunting depredation by farmers to protect livestock, along with habitat destruction and fragmentation. The last documented observation of P. concolor in Pennsylvania specifically was in 1874.
** Maya N. Evanitsky, Sequencing the Genome of the Nittany Lion (Puma concolor from Pennsylvania). Schreyer Honors College, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Pennsylvania State University. Spring 2016. (baccalaureate thesis with honors in Biochemsitry and Molecular Biology)
* At the scale of their entire distribution, cougars inhabit a wide variety of habitats including foothills woodlands, high mountain forests, boreal forests, deserts, riparian woodlands, and tropical forests. Cougars occur in the xerophytic woodlands of central Argentina, tropical semi-deciduous and secondary forests of South and Central America, and the hammock and swamp forests of southern Florida ...
** Kenneth A. Logan and Linda A. Sweanor, "Chapter 9. Cougar (Puma concolor)". Wild Carnivores of New Mexico. University of New Mexico Press. 2024. pp. 219–266. ISBN 0826351530. (quote from p. 226; edited by Jean-Luc E. Cartron and Jennifer K. Frey)

## External links

* Media related to Puma concolor on Wikimedia Commons
* Mountain Lion. National Wildlife Federation.