The Florida cougar, whose photo in front of you is a beautiful big cat, is also called a mountain lion, red tiger, panther or cougar. These beautiful animals take pride of place in tribal mythology, they are secretive and very smart. "Puma" means "strong and powerful" in translation.
Once the cougar was called the "royal cat", this name suits him perfectly. Only it is very difficult to live these days for this beautiful animal. Now the Florida cougar is on the verge of extinction, the Red Book has already “settled” this beast on its pages. In ancient times, the wild cat lived everywhere - from New England to the Rocky Mountains, and we would like to restore the population of the Florida cougar.
Florida cougar description
Puma looks like a panther, only more graceful. She has a strong, flexible elongated body up to two meters long with a tail. The head is small, with small round ears, fangs are large, like all predators, about four centimeters long. Paws are wide, low and strong, withsharp retractable claws that she can hide. The tail is powerful and muscular, about 30 cm long, with a small brush at the end. An adult male weighs about 50-60 kg, a female - about 30-40 kg, there are some individuals that reach 100-105 kg.
The main coat color is yellowish gray or yellowish brown. The belly and chin are white, the tail is black. The ears are dark, there are black markings on the sides of the muzzle. The color of the cougar also depends on the area in which the beast lives. Northern representatives of this species are gray, cougars from tropical regions are red.
Wildlifestyle
Florida puma lives both on the plains and in the mountains up to five thousand meters above sea level. In the second year of life, a wild cat becomes an adult and leaves the mother's possessions. A young cougar sets off in search of its territory, it so happens that for a new home you have to fight to the death in order to win your place in the wild. An adult mountain cat can own a territory of up to 1,300 square kilometers.
Cougar leads a solitary lifestyle, only during the mating season, cats meet for procreation. Puma is not a fan of long-distance running, as it runs out of steam very quickly. The mountain lion hunts after dark, prefers to sleep in the lair during the day and bask in the sun.
What does a puma eat?
Florida cougar hunts mainly moose, deer and mountain sheep. As a delicacy wild cateats mice, squirrels, rabbits. Cougar prey can be crocodiles, porcupines, muskrats, beavers, raccoons, armadillos. If food is scarce, the cougar will visit farmers, attacking livestock and poultry.
If a large animal such as an elk or a deer becomes a prey of a mountain lion, then the predator can eat this prey for a whole week. To do this, the cougar carefully disguises the carcass of the killed animal so that other predators do not find it.
Reproduction
The Florida Cougar is a cat, albeit a wild one, so females can go into heat at any time of the year. The initiative during the breeding season comes from the male. Smelling the smell of a female ready for mating, he invades her possessions. If the “girl” likes the “boy”, she will not drive him away, and the pair of cats will live and hunt together for seven days. During the "honey" week, cougars can mate 60-70 times a day. At the end of the mating season, the male goes home, and the female remains to wait for the cubs, so that later they can grow them on their own. In the world of cougars, family life and raising babies are not the concern of "men".
Mating games suit those animals that have their own territory, the breeding season lasts from December to March. The female bears kittens for about ninety-five days, from two to six blind babies weighing about 400-500 grams are born at a time. After ten days, little cougars begin to see, their teeth erupt and their ears open, they very quickly gain experience from their mother. Kittens aged 25-30 daysout of the den under the leadership of a vigilant parent, the puma mother feeds the cubs with milk for up to three months. Mountain cat's milk is six times more fat than cow's milk, so babies gain weight very quickly. Young people live with their mother for about 20-26 months, then leave to arrange their lives in a new place.
Cut to extinction
Unfortunately, in our time, there are very, very few mountain lions left, the Florida cougar even got the name "ghost of the wild west", because it is almost impossible to see it in its natural environment. Cougar is the rarest subspecies of cougars, it is on the verge of extinction, although once these graceful animals inhabited the vast expanses of North America. Now wild cats live in very limited numbers in the forests and wetlands of Florida.
The reason for this decline in the population of the Florida cougar was the draining of swamps, where cougars mainly prefer to live. To this reason, environmental pollution was added, and, of course, a person had a hand in it, since this beautiful animal is considered an object of sport hunting.
Florida cougar is the only subspecies of cougars that has been assigned the status of "critically endangered" in the Red Book! People came to their senses and protect these beautiful animals, the cougar is included in the application of the CITES convention, which controls the trade in the rarest species of animals.
Florida cougar: interesting facts
The world of animals is very mysterious, you can learn a lot of interesting things about each of the animals. Puma is no exception, in front of yousome interesting facts about this beautiful wild cat.
- The Florida cougar is a very patient animal. When a cougar falls into a trap, it does not rush about like a tiger, but coolly tries to find a way out in order to free itself. Finding no way out, the cat falls into a kind of stupor and can sit motionless for several days.
- At short distances, the cougar can reach speeds of up to fifty kilometers per hour.
- A mountain lion can jump over six meters high.
- Florida cougar can kill prey that weighs three times the weight of a predatory cat.
- Cugar has very good eyesight.
- Cougars squawk during mating season.
- Puma always hunts herself, she never eats prey that was killed by another animal.
