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The cougar (''Puma concolor''), also commonly known as the mountain lion, puma, panther, or catamount, is a large felid of the subfamily Felinae 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.〔 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.〔(Cougars ). US National Park Service.〕〔Hansen, Kevin. (1992) ''Cougar: The American Lion.'' Northland. Flagstaff, AZ, ch. 4, ISBN 0873585445.〕〔(Cougar Education & Identification Course ). New Mexico Department of Game & Fish〕〔(Living With California Mountain Lions ). California Department of Game & Fish〕 The cougar is more closely related to smaller felines, including the domestic cat (subfamily Felinae), than to any species of subfamily Pantherinae,〔〔Hartwell, Sarah. (The Domestication of the Cat ). messybeast.com〕〔(Small Wild Cat Species ). messybeast.com〕 of which only the jaguar is native to the Americas. The cougar is an ambush predator and pursues a wide variety of prey. Primary food sources are ungulates, particularly deer, but also livestock. It also hunts 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 in North America have been increasing in recent years as more people enter their territories.〔 Prolific 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 Florida panther subpopulation. 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,〔(Shot fells elusive cougar chased out of a culvert ). StarTribune.com (December 1, 2011). Retrieved on April 29, 2013.〕 Missouri,〔(Confirmed Mountain Lion Reports ). Missouri Department of Conversation, mdc.mo.gov (March 20, 2014)〕 Wisconsin, Iowa,〔(Mountain Lion Shot Early Friday Morning in Monona County ). Iowa Department of Natural Resources, iowadnr.gov (December 23, 2011)〕〔(Mountain lion shot by police in Monona County – KWWL.com – News & Weather for Waterloo, Dubuque, Cedar Rapids & Iowa City, Iowa | ). KWWL.com. Retrieved on April 29, 2013.〕 the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and Illinois, where a cougar was shot in the city limits of Chicago〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Cougar Network – Using Science to Understand Cougar Ecology )〕 and, in at least one instance, observed as far east as coastal Connecticut.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/07/27/138748682/connecticut-mountain-lion-likely-came-from-the-black-hills )〕 Reports of eastern cougars ''(P. c. cougar)'' still surface, although it was declared extirpated in 2011. ==Naming and etymology== With its vast range across the length of the Americas, ''P. concolor'' has dozens of names and various references in the mythology of the indigenous Americans and in contemporary culture. Currently, it is referred to as "puma" by most scientists〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=San Diego Zoo )〕 and by the populations in 21 of the 23 countries in the Americas where "puma" is the common name in Spanish or Portuguese. The cat has many local or regional names in the United States and Canada, however, of which cougar, puma, mountain lion, and panther are popular. "Mountain lion" was a term first used in writing in 1858 from the diary of George A. Jackson of Colorado. Other names include catamount (probably a contraction from "cat of the mountain"), mountain screamer, and painter. Lexicographers regard painter as a primarily upper-Southern US regional variant on panther. 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 (''P. c. coryi''). ''P. concolor'' holds the Guinness record for the animal with the greatest number of names, over 40 in English alone. "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 hair color)". 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'' ( brown ''onça'', in distinction of the black-spotted () 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 the jaguar as simply ''gata'' (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. The French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1774 (probably influenced by the word "jaguar") converted the ''cuguacu ara'' to ''cuguar'', which was later modified to "cougar" in English.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 cougar )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】 year = 1989 )〕 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". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「cougar」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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