Let us start with the names of the cougar. The cougar is known by more names than almost any other mammal. It is also called the mountain lion, the puma and the panther, and these are all names for the one cougar. About 40 English names have been listed for the cougar, including puma, mountain lion and catamount. In Florida, cougars are called Florida panthers.
Now let us see where cougars live. Cougars live from the Yukon in Canada south to the southern tip of Chile. They can be found in many habitats throughout the Americas, including deserts and forests. You may have heard that cougars live only in the mountains of the western United States. In fact, the cougar has the largest range of any wild land mammal in the Western Hemisphere. The eastern cougar, a cougar once listed as endangered, was last recorded in Maine in 1938.
Next, let us look at what a cougar's body can do. Adult male cougars typically weigh between 115 and 220 pounds (52 to 100 kilograms), and a big male can be more than eight feet long from nose to tail tip. Zoos report that a cougar can reach up to 50 miles per hour in a sprint. A cougar can leap about 18 feet (5.5 meters) straight up, and about 40 feet along the ground in a single bound. A cougar can hear very high-pitched sounds. A cougar can purr but cannot roar, and it can growl and hiss.
Now let us see how a cougar hunts. Cougars mostly eat large animals such as deer and elk, but a cougar hunts mainly deer, and its diet depends on where it lives and what is there. Cougars are generally solitary hunters, and they have especially keen eyesight. Cougars see better than people in dim light. A cougar stalks its food quietly before it leaps. A cougar must get close to its prey before it ambushes from a short distance.
Now let us meet the kittens. Cougar kittens are born with spots, and they have blue eyes when they are born. A newborn kitten weighs about one pound, and a cougar's spots fade as it grows and are almost gone by age 1. A mother cougar gives birth to her kittens in a den, and a typical cougar litter is two to four kittens. Cougar kittens are cared for by their mother for up to two years. Young cougars leave their mother and go off to find a territory of their own.
Words to know
- prey: hunted animals
- ambushes: springs out
- stalks: sneaks up
- territory: an animal's area
- litter: kittens born together
- catamount: a cougar
