Cougar

The cougar (Puma concolor) (/ˈkuːɡər/, KOO-gər), 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 the Yukon, British Columbia and Alberta provinces of 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.

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 (likely unrelated) words, including Scottish Gaelic cugar and cugarbhad (a wild or domesticated male cat; also signifying a hero, gallant, or champion). The usual Gaelic for cat is "cat" (with Cú or Coin signifying a canid).

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.

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.

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: