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The cougar (Puma concolor) (/ ˈ k uː ɡ ər /, KOO-gər), also known as the panther, mountain lion, catamount and puma, is a large 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.
Puma (/ ˈ p j uː m ə / or / ˈ p uː m ə /) is a genus in the family Felidae whose only extant species is the cougar (also known as the puma, mountain lion, and panther, [2] among other names), and may also include several poorly known Old World fossil representatives (for example, Puma pardoides, or Owen's panther, a large, cougar-like cat of Eurasia's Pliocene).
The cougar is also commonly known as mountain lion, puma, mountain cat, catamount, or panther. The sub-population in Florida is known as the Florida panther . Over 130 attacks have been documented in [ 1 ] North America in the past 100 years, with 28 attacks resulting in fatalities.
It is known by a variety of names: cougar, mountain lion, catamount, panther, léon, and it’s all the same animal. There are subspecies, too, such as the Florida Panther.
Other names for the same cat include Puma, Panther, Painter, Mexican Lion, and Catamount, in addition to Mountain Lion and Cougar. Mountain lions can jump, and they jump high.
European settlers modified lion to mountain lion, which is a name still used today in the western United States. People in portions of the southern and eastern U.S. referred to the cat as a "painter."
A cougar in the snow at North Cedar Brook in Boulder, Colorado, the USA. The North American Cougar is a carnivore and its main sources of prey are deer, elk, mountain goats, moose and bighorn sheep. [25] Despite being a large predator, the North American Cougar can also be the prey of larger predators like wolves and bears. [26]
The eastern cougar or eastern puma (Puma concolor couguar) is a subspecies designation proposed in 1946 for cougar populations in eastern North America. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] The subspecies as described in 1946 was declared extinct by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2011. [ 4 ]