THE PUMA - CAT OF ONE COLOUR (Puma concolor)

[BorneanTiger]

(05-22-2019, 11:22 AM)Luipaard Wrote: https://peru.info/en-us/tourism/news/3/16/andean-puma--the-second-largest-feline-in-america

"The puma owes its different names to the different habitats in which it lives; it can be found in mountainous deserts, forests, wetlands, plains, and even on snow-capped mountains at an altitude of almost 16,400 feet, where paw prints have been found. It can be found from Canada to the end of the Andes Mountains, where it has been most successful in terms of survival. 

South America is where the most subspecies of puma can be found. There is the puma concolor concolor or Northern South American puma, which lives in Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina; the puma concolor cabrerae or Argentinian puma, is found in Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina; the puma concolor anthonyi or Eastern South American puma, can be seen in Venezuela, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay; and the puma concolor puma or Southern South American puma, a subspecies found in Chile and Argentina, which can withstand the lowest temperatures"

As mentioned before in this thread, these cougars are one of the larger ones:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

Or formerly recognized subspecies, if you like. The Cat Specialist Group reckons that all South American cougars, with the possible exception of those in northwestern South America, are 1 subspecies, Puma concolor concolor (Pages 32−33: https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/hand...sAllowed=y), unless the puma ends up in a similar situation as the tiger, which had its taxonomy revised by the CSG in 2017 to 2 subspecies (Pages 66−68), before 2 CSG members rebelled against this decision by helping to produce a genetic study in 2018 to say that there are indeed 6 subspecies of tigers (https://www.cell.com/current-biology/ful...all%3Dtrue).

By the way, that Patagonian cougar at the top is quite muscular. Reply