Cougar
Puma concolor
— Where the name comes from
Puma is a Quechua word, taken whole from the language of the Inca. Concolor is Latin for “of one colour”: with no spots and no stripes, the coat is uniform. It is the animal with more common names in English than any other — puma, cougar, mountain lion, panther — a record that reflects how vast its range is.
— Facts
- Group
- Mammals · Mammalia
- Order
- Carnivores
- Habitat
- Forest, mountain, desert, swamp — from sea level to 5,800 m
- Range
- The whole of the Americas, from the Canadian Yukon to Patagonia
- Size
- 100–200 cm of body, 29–100 kg
- Diet
- Carnivore — deer, rodents, and guanacos in Patagonia
- Lifespan
- 8–13 years in the wild
— Characteristics
- 01
Jumps up to 5.5 metres from a standstill: the mammal with the most powerful take-off for its weight.
- 02
For all its size it does not roar; it purrs like a house cat and screams.
- 03
It is the largest of the “small cats”: genetically closer to the domestic cat than to the lion.
— What sets it apart
The puma holds the record for range among all the land mammals of the Americas, and that has made it a problem of language: different colonists each named it their own way, so that it has over forty names in English. One animal that, travelling from north to south, changes name as often as it changes latitude.
