Have you ever heard tales of the Mountain Screamer or the Red Tiger? My guess is you have and didn’t even know it. These are all names given to the Cougar, a species that holds two records. One is the record for having the most common names of any mammal, estimated at over eighty. The other record, which is probably why it holds the record for the most names, is that before European settlers arrived the Mountain Lion was the most widely distributed wild mammal on the continent of North America. Its range stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and from Canada all the way down to Argentina in South America. Throughout this article I will capitalize all the different names of the American Lion and see how many I can teach you by the end.
One of my favourite names for this wild neighbour is the Ghost Walker. The tracks are often seen, but the animal that leaves them rarely is. This is why I love winter; the snow makes a “purrfect” storybook for tracks. I can see where the Panther has been, and I can see what it has been up to in my stomping grounds. I have lived with a King Cat in my backyard for over ten years and have only seen a fleeting glimpse once. But the statistic is that for every one time you see the Deer Tiger, it has seen you around 200 times. This should give you “paws” to reflect that the most skilled and feared predator of the foothills, the Painter, wants very little to do with humans. Since 1890 there have only ever been 126 recorded attacks in all of North America, and only twenty-seven of those were fatal. The Sneak Cat has evolved as a solitary hunter, with retractable claws that only come out when catching prey and sensitive whiskers on its muzzle and feet to stalk stealthily through the undergrowth without making a sound.
If you want to look for traces of the Puma on your travels, you need to keep your eyes peeled for large, rounded tracks with four toe pads, one lobed M-like foot pad and no claw marks. Another distinguishing feature is that when you draw a line in between the toe pads it will cross over the foot pad, unlike a wild dog track. Female Catamount tracks are smaller than male tracks, which are about the same width as a credit card is long. The Mexican Lion also uses a straight- line walking pattern, stepping its back paws into the holes left by its front paws.
The name that intrigues me personally is the scientific name Felis Concolor, which translates directly to cat of one colour. I find it amusing because the Silver Lion can range anywhere from tawny yellow to red to blue grey in colour depending on its habitat. Regardless of which colour coat it wears or what name it goes by, I am happy to share the neighbourhood with this beautiful creature. If you would like to see a video of my cat and I identifying tracks of Brown Tigers, please go to youtu.be/cYaOF6DWWHU
