|
About Puma
The puma (Puma concolor)
is a type of feline (cat) found in
North,
Central, and
South America. Though large in size
this cat cannot roar, but instead purrs
and has even been said to make eerily
humanlike screams when courting. It is
more closely related to the common house
cat than to the four "big
cats": the tiger, lion, jaguar and
leopard. It is also known by the
regional names of cougar,
mountain lion, panther,
catamount, painter,
American lion, Mexican lion,
Florida panther, silver lion,
red lion, red panther,
red tiger, brown tiger,
deer tiger, ghost cat,
mountain screamer, Indian devil,
sneak cat, king cat, and
painted cat. The word puma
comes from the
Quechua language. In Brazil it is
also known as suçuarana, from the
Tupi language, but also has other
names. In fact in the English language
the puma has over 40 different names.
In North America, particularly the
United States, panther by
itself refers to a puma when the context
implies a local species, although the
term
black panther is correctly
associated only with the
melanistic variants of
leopards or
jaguars rather than pumas. In Europe
and Asia, panther means leopard
and can refer to either the spotted or
black leopard. In South America,
panther refers to the jaguar and can
refer to either the spotted or black
jaguar. The melanistic gene can be seen
in a variety of cats, including the
lion,
tiger, leopard, jaguar,
caracal,
jaguarundi,
serval,
ocelot,
margay,
bobcat,
lynx, and
Geoffroy's Cat; however, melanism
has never been documented in Puma
concolor, although urban legends of
"black panthers" persist. Such anecdotal
accounts are particularly prominent in
the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern
United States, a region where P.
concolor is accepted as having been
wholly extirpated by the late 1800's,
and where breeding populations have not
been documented as re-established by
2005.
Recent
DNA analysis suggests that the puma
is closely related to the jaguarundi and
North American cheetah (Miracinonyx,
now extinct), but not to true cheetahs.
The puma is not closely related to other
large
felines, such as leopards and lions.
There is a considerable variation in
color and size of these animals across
their large range of habitats. |
