How Do You Recognize A Puma?

            There are basically two broad categories of Pumas. There are those that are native to Central and South America known as the Puma Yaguarondi. It is native to Brazil, South Texas, Mexico, Peru, Arizona, Guyana, Argentina, Chile, Honduras, Ecuador etc. The animal is medium in size and measures approximately 30 inches or 65 cm length and its tail measures 20 inches or 45 cm. It resembles an otter to a great degree and bears no spots on it coat; just a uniform shade varying from brownish grey to blackish grey.


            The other is the Puma Concolor which is found on both the North and South American continent. This is an agile species of cat and from nose to tail it measures 8 feet or around 2.5 meters. The colour of the coat can be said to be nothing but plain and ranges in colour from reddish to silver-grey.

The Puma concolor, aka mountain lion or cougar, is so named because "concolor" means "one color" in Latin.

That one color is a tawny beige, tending to more pale on the animal's belly. Young cougars are born with spots for camouflage.

It is very difficult to spot the elusive cougar. But the one impression people always remember after an encounter is the animal's three-foot-long tail, held straight out as it slinks away. The tail is nearly as long as the cat's torso, and about the diameter of a soda can.

Like all cats, cougars retract their claws. Their dinner-plate-sized footprints are distinguishable from the equally big tracks of bears because the cat's print lacks claw marks.

Male pumas have wide, jowly faces. Both sexes have yellow eyes that reflect back blue in the dark, like all domestic cats (except Siamese).