One Cougar Can Plant 94,000 Seeds a Year — Celebrate That on National Cougar Day (June 12)

Cougars are graceful, elegant hunters, and they are everywhere. You could run the length of the western hemisphere and still come across cougars, flourishing in climates as diverse as Canada and Costa Rica. They are also survivors. Cats have been around for over ten million years, and cougars likely emerged from the Puma lineage some eight to eight and a half million years ago. Once cougars crossed the Bering Strait, they established a foothold in the Americas. Such adaptability highlights how fascinating these creatures are.

Even widespread extinctions couldn’t hold them back. Most large animals disappeared during the Pleistocene extinctions 10,000 years ago, but cougars survived. Although cougars were wiped out in some regions, populations from South America moved northward to recolonize these areas. They are hardy and versatile creatures. In honor of National Cougar Day, let’s explore some little-known and fascinating facts about these magnificent cats. Some of them may surprise you.

Wide-Ranging

As mentioned in the intro, cougars live almost everywhere in the Americas. They have the most extensive range of any animal this side of the globe. They can be found across 110° of latitude, from Yukon, Canada, to the southern Andes mountains in Chile. No matter the ecosystem, cougars adapt. They are at home in steep desert canyons, semi-deciduous forests, and even open areas with sparse vegetation. In total, six phylogeographic groups of cougars are known to exist, but a single cougar can cover serious ground. One cougar can cover a territory of up to about 513 square miles, though most have ranges between 50 and 300 square miles.

Many a Nickname

Considering their expansive range, it should come as no surprise that cougars go by many different names. However, what many people don’t realize is that cougars have the most names of any mammal. They even earned a Guinness Book of World Records ranking for their diverse set of monikers. The word cougar derives from the Portuguese word çuçuarana, which has deeper roots in the Tupi Language.

What’s fascinating is that cougars are known by over 40 names in English alone, and more than 80 names across various languages. There are well-known ones like cougar, panther, mountain lion, and puma. There are also more obscure names like painter, catamount, and deer tiger. This doesn’t even account for all the geographic names for this cat, such as Florida panther and Yuma cougar.

A Lion’s (Lack of) Roar

Another fascinating fact about these creatures is that they aren’t classified as ‘Big Cats.’ Much like their relative, the cheetah, mountain lions are considered some of the largest of the small cats. That’s because cougars and cheetahs can’t roar. However, they can purr. In fact, there are many tales of cougars making hissing sounds or unsettling shrieks at night, but they don’t have the roaring capabilities of their distant kin, the lion.

Sticks and Leaves

Cougars don’t have any natural predators, but that doesn’t mean they will let any odd creature steal their dinners. Once one of these cats has made a successful hunt, it will drag its kill to a secluded area. After eating, they often cover their food with debris such as sticks, leaves, soil, or even snow. After that, cougars will remain in the vicinity, keeping an eye out for scavengers or other opportunistic predators.

They will then return to feed on their kill for up to a week. If you’re out in the wilderness and come across a partially covered deer carcass, it’s best to leave the area. There’s a good chance a cougar is lurking around.

Uncritical Eaters

Nothing is off the table when it comes to cougar diets. As a keystone species, cougars subsist on a wide variety of species. They prefer big mammals like deer, elk, and sheep, but they don’t shy away from smaller game. They’ll eat practically anything with a pulse, including rodents, rabbits, birds, and even domesticated pets. As a general rule, however, the “mean weight of cougar vertebrate prey increases with its body weight and is lower in areas closer to the equator.”

Plant Proliferators

Another fascinating fact about cougars is their unintended contribution to plant diversity. Cougars range across the Americas and eat mostly herbivores in their various regions. This means they give a lot back to the environment. Ecologists have known since the 1960s that apex predators keep the world green by restricting herbivore populations. More recent observations, however, show that cougars spread plants far and wide.

They eat a diverse list of herbivores, which means they also eat the seeds in those herbivores’ stomachs. As they travel, they excrete these seeds in different places, contributing to flourishing and diverse foliage. What’s fascinating is that a single cougar can unintentionally plant 94,000 seeds per year. In Argentina’s Parque Luro Natural Reserve, scientists found almost 32,000 seeds in just 123 cougar scats.

Poor Smell, Great Vision

It seems that cougars received an evolutionary trade-off millions of years ago: great vision and supersonic hearing in exchange for a weak sense of smell. They have large eyes with retinas containing more rods than cones. This gives them keen night vision.

Furthermore, cougars can hear high-frequency sounds, which allows them to find unseen prey. Their sense of smell, however, is lacking. Their short muzzles give them exemplary biting power but not much olfactory ability. This prevents them from tracking prey well during the summertime.

Lone Wolf Mentality

Cougars might cover so much ground due to their solitary nature. They hunt alone. Indeed, most cougars spend their time in solitude until breeding season comes. Once it’s that time of year, female cougars will let out eerie screams to attract males. The pairs spend several days together until mating occurs, then it’s back to solitude.

Once females give birth in a suitable den, they take care of their kittens for a while. At about six months, kittens begin to hunt small prey on their own. They continue to live with their mothers for one to two years. After that, they must disperse or risk being killed by incoming males ready to mate. In truth, life is very hard for cougar kittens. On average, only one kitten per litter survives into adulthood.