It stalks to within a few feet of its prey, then rushes forward in a blur of tawny speed as fast as 40 miles per hour and leaps onto its prey. A mountain lion can cut a deer's spinal cord with a single powerful bite of its large canine teeth. Elk, weighing as much as five times as the big cat, require a different technique. After leaping on the elk's back, the leon grasps the elk's head with its big paws, twists the elk's head around and breaks the elk's neck. Biologists estimate that an adult mountain lion needs a deer a week to survive.
Leones are solitary animals.
They avoid other mountain lions, except for brief mating liaisons. Females can come into heat at any time of the year, but spring is most common. The males sleep around, staying with a given female only for the duration of her estrus. About three months after conception, female mountain lions give birth to two or three kittens. The young leones are weaned by six weeks of age, but stay with their mother for 18 months to two years, until they are sexually mature.