The mountain lion is called by more names than any
other Colorado mammal – cougar, puma, panther, catam
ount or just plain lion – and all connote respect for such a magnificent hunter.
Colorado’s largest cat, adult mountain lions are more than six feet long, with a graceful, black-tipped tail 32 inches long.
They weigh 130 pounds or more. Color is reddish to buffy, paler below.
- Cougars have the largest geographic range of any American native mammal other than humans – from western Canada to Argentina.
Once they ranged from coast to coast in the United States, but today eastern populations are extinct or endangered; the West is their stronghold.
Habitat: In Colorado they are most abundant in foothills, canyons or mesa country.
They are more at home in brushy areas and woodlands than in forests or open prairies.
- Active year round, the lion’s staple diet is deer.
Adults maintain their condition by eating a deer a week. Cougars hunt by stealth, often pouncing on prey from a tree or rock overhanging a game trail.
The deer is often killed cleanly with a broken neck.
The cat gorges on the carcass until it can eat no more, covers the remainder with leaves or conifer needles, then fasts for a few days, digesting and resting.
Reproduction: Mountain lions may breed at any time of year, but mating peaks in the spring. Births are most common in July, after a gestation period of about 14 weeks.
Two or three spotted, fist-sized (about one pound) kittens are a typical litter.
They are weaned about six weeks of age, at about eight times their birth weight.
other Colorado mammal – cougar, puma, panther, catam
ount or just plain lion – and all connote respect for such a magnificent hunter.Colorado’s largest cat, adult mountain lions are more than six feet long, with a graceful, black-tipped tail 32 inches long.
They weigh 130 pounds or more. Color is reddish to buffy, paler below.
- Cougars have the largest geographic range of any American native mammal other than humans – from western Canada to Argentina.
Once they ranged from coast to coast in the United States, but today eastern populations are extinct or endangered; the West is their stronghold.
Habitat: In Colorado they are most abundant in foothills, canyons or mesa country.
They are more at home in brushy areas and woodlands than in forests or open prairies.
- Active year round, the lion’s staple diet is deer.
Adults maintain their condition by eating a deer a week. Cougars hunt by stealth, often pouncing on prey from a tree or rock overhanging a game trail.
The deer is often killed cleanly with a broken neck.
The cat gorges on the carcass until it can eat no more, covers the remainder with leaves or conifer needles, then fasts for a few days, digesting and resting.
Reproduction: Mountain lions may breed at any time of year, but mating peaks in the spring. Births are most common in July, after a gestation period of about 14 weeks.
Two or three spotted, fist-sized (about one pound) kittens are a typical litter.
They are weaned about six weeks of age, at about eight times their birth weight.
