The cougar goes by different names in different places: in California, people call them mountain lions; across western North America, cougars; in Florida, panthers; and in Mexico, Central and South America, pumas. All of these are names for one animal. About 40 English names have been listed for the cougar, and it is known by more names than almost any other mammal.

Scientists have also argued over how many kinds of puma there are. The Cat Specialist Group says thirty-two puma subspecies have been described, but only two are now tentatively recognised. A federal rule said it is still debated whether North American pumas comprise a single subspecies or multiple subspecies, and a 2000 genetic analysis by Culver and colleagues injected significant uncertainties into puma taxonomy, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

As of September 2026, ancient DNA analysis shows that Miracinonyx trumani, the extinct American cheetah, was a relative of the modern puma. Its lineage diverged from the puma lineage roughly 2.6 million years ago. Its slender, cheetah-like body is now understood as a striking example of evolutionary convergence, and a 2026 study with ancient DNA found low genetic diversity in M. trumani in Wyoming and the Yukon.

The eastern cougar, a cougar once listed as endangered, was last recorded in Maine in 1938. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service received 573 responses to a request for scientific information about the possible existence of the eastern cougar. The Service said the eastern cougar has been on the endangered species list since 1973, but its existence had long been questioned. Its 2011 review concluded the eastern cougar subspecies has likely been extinct since the 1930s, and the Service said the decision to declare it extinct does not affect the status of the Florida panther.

As of November 2026, the cougar's range runs from British Columbia in Canada through the US and Central and South America to the southern tip of Chile. The cougar has the largest range of any wild land mammal in the Western Hemisphere, and the Cat Specialist Group says the puma can be found in every major habitat type in the Americas, except a few densely populated coastal regions and the highest reaches of the Andes.

The Cat Specialist Group says the puma population in Canada was estimated at 3,500-5,000 and in the western US at 10,000 in the early 1990s. As of November 2026, it also says the major threats to pumas are habitat loss and fragmentation, and human persecution, and that it has lost up to 50% of its original distribution range.

As of November 2026, Florida panthers occur in peninsular Florida, primarily south of Orlando. The Cat Specialist Group says the Florida panther is classified as Endangered in North America. The Florida panther was put on the first Endangered species list in 1967, and its population rebounded from an estimated low of 10 animals to over 200, as of April 2022. In the 1970s and 1980s, it was estimated that only 20 to 30 panthers remained in Florida. Eight female Texas panthers were brought in in the 1990s and released in Florida to breed, which increased panther numbers, genetic diversity and survival rates.

The February 2017 estimate was 120 to 230 adult and subadult panthers, up from 100 to 180 in 2014. The counts rely on annual counts of panthers primarily conducted on public lands, and do not include kittens, which are still dependent on their mothers. As of April 2022, the Fish and Wildlife Service says the recovery depends on increasing the range and size of the population.

The National Park Service study in the Santa Monica Mountains began when the first lion, P-001, was captured on July 19, 2002, and in the first 15 years biologists captured and GPS-collared 29 adult and subadult mountain lions and used 128,133 locations to estimate home range size. In the Santa Cruz Mountains, the collars record not only location and travels but also hunting behavior such as bursts of speed or pounces.

Colorado researchers tested camera traps and other methods to sample cougars in the Front Range. California Fish and Wildlife uses genetic data from scat surveys (2017-2022) and GPS collar data in a statewide project to learn how many mountain lions there are.

Santa Monica Mountains lions can modify their behavior and persist around humans. Only about one percent of the lion locations in that study were in urban areas. During the early 2020 stay-at-home period, as of June 2020, 12 GPS-collared mountain lions used smaller areas and moved shorter distances.

In the Santa Monica Mountains, adult male ranges averaged 144 square miles, about three times bigger than adult females at 52 square miles. Female cougar home ranges run from 26 to 350 square kilometers (average 140), and male ranges from 140 to 760 square kilometers (average 280).

Male young cougars disperse from 23 to 274 km from where they were born, while females disperse from 9 to 140 km. A 2012 study found 178 cougar confirmations in the Midwest, with confirmations steadily increasing between 1990 and 2008. The authors suggest males are leading a stepping-stone dispersal of the cougar population, and one male cougar from the Black Hills was found to have traveled 2,900 kilometers before reaching Connecticut.

A cougar typically makes a large catch every 7 to 10 days, but a female with kittens may hunt as often as every 3 days. As of February 2015, in a Santa Cruz Mountains study, collared female pumas took an average of 67 deer per year, and males nearly 44. Female pumas in developed habitats took 36 percent more deer per year than in areas with little housing. A cougar hunts mainly deer, but its diet depends on where it lives and what is there.

A cougar stalks its food quietly before it leaps, and it must get close to its prey before it ambushes from a short distance. Cougars can run fast and have a flexible spine like a cheetah's, and zoos report that a cougar can reach up to 50 miles per hour in a sprint.

A cougar's life begins with a typical litter of two to four kittens, born with spots that fade as they grow and are almost gone by age 1. Cougar kittens are cared for by their mother for up to two years. Young cougars then leave their mother and go off to find a territory of their own.

Words to know

• subspecies: a smaller kind
• taxonomy: naming and grouping
• lineage: a family line
• convergence: similar bodies
• subadult: nearly grown
• disperse: spread out