The puma (Felis concolor) is a large wild cat found in the Americas where it is often also called a panther, painter, cougar and catamount. Next to the jaguar, the puma is the largest American cat, and once ranged from New England and British Columbia to Patagonia. In the adult the upper surface is a uniform tawny colour, except for a dark streak along the middle of the back, and a dark tip to the tail, while the under surface is of a paler tint. he presence in the young, however, of a ringed tail and of spots on the body shows that the puma's ancestors possessed characteristically feline colouration.
Pumas vary greatly in size, sometimes reaching 2.5 metres from nose to the tip of the tail, the tail being usually about a metre long, but usually the body is about a metre long. The puma lives in low-lying plains and on mountain slopes both in forests and in treeless pampas where it feeds on larger animals, typically horses, sheep, deer, larger rodents, birds, rats, mice and fish. Research Puma
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Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Nature
Research Puma
