Cougars

"After a stalk of a few minutes across a , puma crouched behind bush and waited until nearest deer came within 5 ft. Puma caught its hindquarters with its front paws probably because tall brush prevented a leap. The deer was forced to its haunches and after struggling downhill for about 70 ft. stumbled; and deer and puma rolled over and over out of sight into clump of shrubs where it was killed. Puma carried deer for about 50 yds., dragged it at least another 80 yds. Liver eaten and uneaten stomach and intestines removed from hole in deer's side next to ribs. Buried carcass under leaves and weeds."

"... After the near elimination of mountain lions from the United States in the first half of the 20th century, protective laws beginning in the mid-1960s allowed them to reestablish or increase their populations across the West. Mountain lions typically occur in topographically varied s. Their rugged habitat is one of the main reasons that lions are seldom seen. They live in areas with high prey densities and enough vegetation and topography for good hunting cover. Maternal females usually select dens in rock outcrops, dense shrubs, or under conifers well out of sight of people."

"... any one may have a fancy, and a squirrel has a right to make up his mind touching a catamount."

"Puma concolor, a large American cat species, occupies the most extensive range of any New World terrestrial mammal, spanning 100 degrees of latitude from the to the . ... Genomic DNA specimens from 315 pumas of specified geographic origin (261 contemporary and 54 museum specimens) were collected for molecular genetic and phylogenetic analyses of three mitochondrial gene sequences (16S rRNA, ATPase-8, and NADH-5) plus composite microsatellite genotypes (10 feline loci). ... The marked uniformity of mtDNA and a reduction in microsatellite allele size expansion indicates that North American pumas derive from a recent ( circa 10,000 years ago) replacement and recolonization by a small number of founders who themselves originated from a centrum of puma genetic diversity in eastern South America 200,000-300,000 years ago. The recolonization of North American pumas was coincident with a massive late Pleistocene extinction event that eliminated 80% of large vertebrates in North America and may have extirpated pumas from that continent as well."

"The mountain lion is large and slender and has short, muscular limbs ... The pelage is of medium texture, characteristically short year-round in tropical forms, but growing longer and thicker in the winter in temperate forms. The young are black-spotted in three irregular dorsal lines and transverse rows These spots are vivid up to the animal's third or fourth month of life. The eye color is blue in young kittens and turns greyish brown to golden in adults. The pupils are round."

"Mountain lions (Puma concolor) were previously endemic across Pennsylvania. The species was officially declared regionally extinct in 2011 by the , although the last time that a mountain lion was observed east of the was in Maine in 1938, excluding the current population that resides in Florida. The Northeastern population of P. concolor has been almost nonexistent since the early 1800s, most likely due to targeted hunting depredation by farmers to protect livestock, along with habitat destruction and fragmentation. The last documented observation of P. concolor in Pennsylvania specifically was in 1874."

"At the scale of their entire distribution, cougars inhabit a wide variety of habitats including foothills woodlands, high mountain forests, boreal forests, deserts, riparian woodlands, and tropical forests. Cougars occur in the xerophytic woodlands of central Argentina, tropical semi-deciduous and secondary forests of South and Central America, and the and s of ..."