Animal - big cat - Puma (or Cougar) in Montana, USA - postcard c.1980s

Postcard
• Picture / Image:  Puma [or Cougar] in Montana in USA
• Publisher:  Dieter & Mary Plage / Bruce Coleman Ltd. 'Animal World'
• Postally used:  no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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The cougar (Puma concolor), also known as the mountain lion, puma, panther, painter, mountain cat,^[3] or catamount, is a large cat of the family Felidae native to the Americas. Its range, from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes of South America, is the greatest of any large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere.^[4] An adaptable, generalist species, the cougar is found in most American habitat types. It is the second heaviest cat in the New World, after the jaguar. Secretive and largely solitary by nature, the cougar is properly considered both nocturnal and crepuscular, although sightings during daylight hours do occur.^[5][6][7][8] The cougar is more closely related to smaller felines, including the domestic cat (subfamily Felinae), than to any subspecies of lion (subfamily Pantherinae).^[9][10][11]

An excellent stalk-and-ambush predator, the cougar pursues a wide variety of prey. Primary food sources include ungulates such as deer, elk, moose, and bighorn sheep, as well as domestic cattle, horses and sheep, particularly in the northern part of its range. It will also hunt species as small as insects and rodents. This cat prefers habitats with dense underbrush and rocky areas for stalking, but can also live in open areas. The cougar is territorial and survives at low population densities. Individual territory sizes depend on terrain, vegetation, and abundance of prey. While large, it is not always the apex predator in its range, yielding to the jaguar, gray wolf, American black bear, and grizzly bear. It is reclusive and mostly avoids people. Fatal attacks on humans are rare, but have been trending upward in recent years as more people enter their territory.^[12]

Excessive hunting following European colonization of the Americas and the ongoing human development of cougar habitat has caused populations to drop in most parts of its historical range. In particular, the cougar was extirpated in eastern North America in the beginning of the 20th century, except for an isolated subpopulation in Florida. However, in recent decades, breeding populations have moved east into the far western parts of the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. Transient males have been verified in Minnesota,^[13] Missouri,^[14] Wisconsin,^[15] Iowa,^[16][17] the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and Illinois, where a cougar was shot in the city limits of Chicago^[18][19][20] and, in at least one instance, observed as far east as Connecticut.^[21][22] Today, reports of eastern cougars (Puma concolor cougar) still surface, although it was declared extirpated in 2011.^[23]

With its vast range across the length of the Americas, Puma concolor has dozens of names and various references in the mythology of the indigenous Americans and in contemporary culture. The cat has many names in English, of which cougar, puma and mountain lion are popular. ""Mountain lion"" was a term first used in writing in 1858 from the diary of George A. Jackson of Colorado.^[24] Other names include ""catamount"" (probably a contraction from ""cat of the mountain""), ""panther"", ""mountain screamer"" and ""painter"". Lexicographers regard ""painter"" as a primarily upper-Southern US regional variant on ""panther"".^[25] The word panther is commonly used to specifically designate the black panther, a melanistic jaguar or leopard, and the Florida panther, a subspecies of cougar (Puma concolor coryi).

Puma concolor holds the Guinness record for the animal with the highest number of names, presumably due to its wide distribution across North and South America. It has over 40 names in English alone.^[26]

""Cougar"" may be borrowed from the archaic Portuguese çuçuarana; the term was originally derived from the Tupi language susua'rana, meaning ""similar to deer (in the hairs colour)"". A current form in Brazil is suçuarana. It may also be borrowed from the Guaraní language term guaçu ara or guazu ara. Less common Portuguese terms are onça-parda (lit. brown onça, in distinction of the black-spotted [yellow] one, onça-pintada, the jaguar) or leão-baio (lit. chestnut lion), or unusually non-native puma or leão-da-montanha, more common names for the animal when native to a region other than South America (especially for those who do not know that suçuaranas are found elsewhere but with a different name). People in rural regions often refer to both the cougar and to the jaguar as simply gata (lit. she-cat), and outside of the Amazon, both are colloquially referred to as simply onça by many people (that is also a name for the leopard in Angola).

In the 17th century, German naturalist Georg Marcgrave named the cat the cuguacu ara. Marcgrave's rendering was reproduced by his associate, Dutch naturalist Willem Piso, in 1648. Cuguacu ara was then adopted by English naturalist John Ray in 1693.^[27] The French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1774 (probably influenced by the word ""jaguar"") converted the cuguacu ara to cuguar, from when it was later modified to ""cougar"" in English.^[28][29][30]

The first English record of ""puma"" was in 1777, where it had come from the Spanish, who in turn borrowed it from the Peruvian Quechua language in the 16th century, where it means ""powerful"".^[31] Puma is also the most common name cross-linguistically.^{[citation needed]}

The cougar is the largest of the small cats. It is placed in the subfamily Felinae, although its bulk characteristics are similar to those of the big cats in the subfamily Pantherinae.^[1] The family Felidae is believed to have originated in Asia about 11 million years ago. Taxonomic research on felids remains partial, and much of what is known about their evolutionary history is based on mitochondrial DNA analysis,^[32] as cats are poorly represented in the fossil record,^[33] and there are significant confidence intervals with suggested dates. In the latest genomic study of Felidae, the common ancestor of today's Leopardus, Lynx, Puma, Prionailurus, and Felis lineages migrated across the Bering land bridge into the Americas 8.0 to 8.5 million years ago (Mya). The lineages subsequently diverged in that order.^[33] North American felids then invaded South America 3 Mya as part of the Great American Interchange, following formation of the Isthmus of Panama. The cougar was originally thought to belong in Felis (Felis concolor), the genus which includes the domestic cat. As of 1993, it is now placed in Puma along with the jaguarundi, a cat just a little more than a tenth its weight.

Studies have indicated the cougar and jaguarundi are most closely related to the modern cheetah of Africa and western Asia,^[33][34] but the relationship is unresolved. The cheetah lineage is suggested to have diverged from the Puma lineage in the Americas (see American cheetah) and migrated back to Asia and Africa,^[33][34] while other research suggests the cheetah diverged in the Old World itself.^[35] The outline of small feline migration to the Americas is thus unclear.

Recent studies have demonstrated a high level of genetic similarity among the North American cougar populations, suggesting they are all fairly recent descendants of a small ancestral group. Culver et al. suggest the original North American population of Puma concolor was extirpated during the Pleistocene extinctions some 10,000 years ago, when other large mammals, such as Smilodon, also disappeared. North America was then repopulated by a group of South American cougars.^[34]

type=printed

animal subject=puma

period=post-war (1945-present)

postage condition=unposted

number of items=single

size=continental/ modern (150x100 mm)

county/ country=usa