Where does the cougar live in nature?

In the Western Hemisphere, a royal cat is found from the Yukon to Patagonia, and it is easier, when answering the question about where the cougar lives in America, to answer where it does not live. The Guinness Book of Records included this unique animal in the number of world achievements as a magnificent creation of nature, which has the most names. Only in English-speaking countries the beast has more than 40 names.

Kind of feline

The vastness of the geographical regions where the cougar lives, would make it possible to attribute it to the most common feline species. But despite the outward resemblance to representatives of this family, the cougar is singled out in a separate genus. And this genus included a single species with a huge number of subspecies.

A long tail balancing in a jump, a powerful body, strong legs and a small head made the puma a unique representative of a separate genus, one of the most common on earth. Residents of North and South America, from Patagonia to the Rocky Mountains, can meet this majestic animal in the forests, plains, highlands, swamps and even in the tropical jungle. The only thing the cougar does not like is open spaces.

An adult animal reaches a length of up to 2 m. The mass of the animal can reach a mark of 106-110 kg. The tail has a length of 0.8 m. The head of the animal is small. Such a powerful cat has very strong legs. Her muzzle usually has a white ending.

Color and habitat

North America and its climate awarded the puma a silvery sheen of fur. In the more southern pampas, the hair of the animal acquired a predominant golden red hue. The Florida cougar, named for its predominant habitat, is smaller than the remaining subspecies, but also red, with a grayish-sand tint. Its characteristic color also depends on the place where the cougar lives.

Simple and exact names

The Florida cougar is on the verge of extinction and is listed in the Red Book. There was a time when about 20 individuals remained on the entire planet. Hunters of America destroyed the Wisconsin Puma in 1925. Today, some subspecies of the beautiful creation of nature are balancing on the verge of complete extinction, the reason for this is a man who shoots a mountain lion, destroying the natural areas of its habitat.

The prevalence of geographical latitudes, where you can meet representatives of a particular species, has led to the fact that in many places the animal received poetic and inaccurate names. Only some subspecies were named after their habitat. You must always remember that the cougar is an animal. Where this forest beauty lives depends on her species. The rest of the names were given to her in different regions by people admired or frightened by her power, beauty, mystery, outstanding hunting abilities.

Poetic and inaccurate names

The opportunity to meet the formidable predator at night hunting or during the day, in the gentle sun, gave rise to awe, delusions, adoration. For example, the Appalachian mountains, where the puma lives, served what they call her a mountain lion, and in the rest of America, especially in the west, where this animal was considered a symbol of endless expanses, they called it differently:

mountain devil;
royal cat;
red tiger;
silver lion;
Mexican Lion
deer cat.

Biologists have about 30 subspecies of the red tiger, but they all live in the Americas, so the puma is still lovingly called America's largest cat. Man continues to gradually reduce the area of places where the cougar lives. Mainland North America dubbed the puma a puma, borrowing the name of the majestic animal from the Quechua language, and in the same place two subspecies were practically destroyed.

Two mainland habitats

Beautiful and majestic, able to drag the carcass of an animal hunted and weighing more than a hunter, the puma differs in subspecies depending on the place where it lives. The answer to the question of what kind of animal is the puma, where it lives (on which continent), suggests two options and two continents - North and South America. Its subspecies differ in American habitats:

Puma concolor browni - in Mexico.
Puma concolor costaricensis - from Panama to Nicaragua.
Puma concolor kaibabensis - in Utah, Nevada, and Northern Arizona.
Puma concolor osgoodi - in Bolivia, in the Andes.
Puma concolor soderstromi, - in Ecuador and so on.

The existence of some subspecies, mostly Latin American, is ridiculously little known. They are described according to eyewitness accounts, poor and few blurry photographs, and several skins obtained. Sometimes a naturalist can determine by trophy, but where the animal lives and how the skin is obtained is unknown.

Similar, but not so

The outward resemblance of a mountain lion can be seen with various animals of the feline family, and sometimes it is even possible to get a hybrid of a puma and a leopard or to happen with an ocelot and a jaguar. But this is an artificial crossing, which does not happen in the wild, where the jaguar is one of the main enemies of the red tiger, and the latter is forced to avoid the habitat of the jaguar. In a certain way, a panther is similar to a cougar. But if you look closely, then a lot more cougar resembles a domestic cat.

Little blind kittens

An American lion gives birth to 2 to 6 kittens, and, like a real cat, they are small, blind and completely helpless. And although already at 9 months they can hunt independently, the female takes care of them until almost 2 years. All this happens in another hemisphere and in another animal world, and in different conditions, but in appearance the small cougars resemble both an ocelot, and a jaguar, and a panther, because they are born spotted. Only growing up, they acquire the characteristic color of their appearance, and the spots disappear. This is the indigenous inhabitant of America, and it is named in the language of the indigenous inhabitants of America - the cougar. Where does he live in Russia? In Russia, it simply does not exist. Unless only in the zoo.