Also called the
puma,
mountain lion, red tiger, deercat, mountain devil, king cat, Mexican lion,
panther, mountain screamer, silver lion,
catamount, and sneak cat,
Felis concolor is found throughout the
Americas. It will hunt day or night, in
desert,
mountain,
forest,
swamp,
prairie, wherever it can find something to catch. Cougars prefer large animals such as
deer and
elk but will eat anything down to
grasshoppers. They kill the larger animals by leaping onto their backs from above and have been documented killing bull elk seven times their own size. (Cougars are generally between 80 and 200 pounds.) They will often bury the
prey's
carcass and come back to it later, thus keeping
scavengers away.
The scientific name, meaning "cat of one color all over," documents that unlike most felines, this cat has fur of one shade, a reddish brown in tropical areas and a more grayish brown in colder climates, though the cubs are often born with spots which fade. They are now most common in the mountains of the western U.S. and Canada, as they were hunted as pests in the more settled areas until the 1960s. Farmers still want them dead as they attack livestock when other food is not available. One subspecies, the Florida panther, may have only 30 to 50 left in the wild in the Everglades, and cougars are now being brought in from other places to breed with captive Florida panthers to try and keep some of the genes alive.