Animal Fact Sheet
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Mountain Lion
a.k.a. puma, cougar, panther,
catamount
Puma concolor
What does it look
like?
Next to the jaguar, the puma is the largest American cat. In the
Southwest, the adult males weigh from 100 to 160 pounds, and the
females from 60 to 110 pounds.
- The body of the puma is elongated with a long tail, small head
and small
rounded ears
- Pumas are buff colored above and lighter below.
- They have contrasting dark and light markings on their muzzles
and on the
backs of their ears
- The tip of the tail is dark brown. The kittens have dark spots
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| Where
in the world?
The puma has the widest distribution of any American mammal. They
range from Canada to southern Chile and southern Argentina in all
terrestrial habitats. They are typically found in remote areas where
there is an abundance of deer. Extirpated from much of the eastern
North America, their numbers are secure in the West. In areas of
the West where a dispersed human population and high deer numbers
are in proximity to a healthy lion population, this situation has
sometimes resulted in human/puma interactions. These encounters
are increasing, but still rare.
What are some behaviors?
Except for mothers with kittens, lions are solitary animals. An
individual may range over 100 square miles or more. The range of
an individual may overlap with other mountain lions, particularly
males overlapping female territories. The pumas usually avoid one
another in these areas of overlap. They will leave scat, scrape
in the dirt with their hind feet, or urine-mark foliage or boulders
as scent information for other cats. Active defense of a territory
is unusual.
A hunting lion goes to places where it is more
likely to find deer, like a water hole or a canyon bottom. It waits
in ambush or stalks deer at these sites. Prey is captured with a
quick rush. The lion grasps the deer around its shoulders with its
sharp retractile claws, and delivers a killing bite to the neck.
The lion’s long canine teeth typically separate the neck vertebrae
and severe the spinal column. Death is usually quick for the deer
and the killing is relatively safe for the lion.
What about offspring?
A male mountain lion knows when a female will be in ready to mate
by smelling the sent marks in her territory. Females can come into
heat at any time of year. The male and female associate for only
this brief period. About 90-days later, three or four kittens are
born in a natural shelter, such as a cave amongst boulders or a
brushy thicket. The kittens spend the next year and one half with
their mother. At first, mother nurses them, then she brings them
prey, and then as they can travel, she takes them hunting. A lion
is never an efficient hunter until it has its adult canine teeth
at 18 months of age. These young animals then leave their mother
and wander alone. While they are perfecting their hunting skills
and trying to find an unoccupied range, these wandering young lions
are bounced about from the territory of one adult resident lion
to another. This is a difficult period in a lion’s life, the
period in which they are most likely to get into trouble with livestock,
people, and other lions.
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What does it eat?
Mountain lions eat primarily deer throughout their range. If there
are no deer, there are few lions. Secondary prey can include bighorn,
javelina, and even porcupines. A puma generally kills one deer per
week. The lion caches the carcass under a shrub or buries it under
leaves, and may return to feed nightly for several days. Pumas in
the desert kill more often then those in the mountain woodlands,
because the cached carcasses decay faster in the hot desert.
Is it threatened
or endangered?
Like all top-level large carnivores, lions are never common. However,
in the West, puma populations are secure. In some western states,
not California, they are a legally hunted animal. In the East, lions
were extirpated many years ago, except for the endangered Florida
panther. |
