COUGAR
Cougar running courtesy of Webweavers clipart    "The Phantom Cat"" Cougar running courtesy of Webweavers clipart

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Puma concolor









Mercury cougar

"Not the Mercury Cougar..."

"Nope. Not that one either..."

Puma shoe
Photo used with permission from Tim Ennis

"You're getting warmer..."





"Wait for it....................."











Photo used with permission from Savio DSilva


"AHA!  Now that's what I'm talking about!"


A little bit of background on the cougar...


The most commonly used name for the
Puma concolor is the cougar.  Cougars have one of the most widely spread habitats in the Western Hemisphere and  this is why they have so many common names.  These common names  include puma, panther, catamount, and mountain lion.  Each of these names have arisen from the different geographical habitats of the cougar throughout time.  The cougar was first coined a “lion” because the Europeans in the New World identified its obvious resemblance to the Old World cat of that name.   Carl Linnaeus was the first to name the cougar species in 1771. He called it Felis concolor which  means “cat of one color” in Latin. “Puma” was what the Incas called the cougar, and roughly translated this means “magic mighty animal”. Currently, Puma is the accepted genus for the cougar replacing Felis (Ewer 1973) therefore resulting in the scientific name Puma concolor. 




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This page was last updated on April 25, 2008.