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North American cougar (Puma concolor couguar)

BorneanTiger Offline
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( This post was last modified: 09-01-2020, 11:46 AM by BorneanTiger )

The North American cougar (Puma concolor couguar) is the subspecies of cougars native to North America, and it is possible that cougars in northwest South America (northwest of the Andes) belong to this subspecies: https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/hand...f?#page=33

As I mentioned earlier, the cougar can be found in the vicinity of major American urban areas, such as Los Angeles in California:

Where do mountain lions hunt in Los Angeles? https://www.theverge.com/2016/7/15/12187...ucla-study

Credit: Steve Winter / National Geographic
   
   

Though the Eastern cougar (the type specimen for the subspecies, which had been present in northeastern North America), is classified as extinct or extirpated, within the eastern part of the U.S.A., the Florida panther (formerly Puma concolor coryi / floridana), still exists, thankfully:

Photo of an Eastern cougar by Lavonda Walton of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service:
   

Floridan cougar at Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, Naples, credit: The National Geographic
   

Floridan panthers fighting:



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BorneanTiger Offline
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( This post was last modified: 09-27-2020, 06:22 PM by BorneanTiger )

@Balam @Dark Jaguar In February, a 6-year-old girl was attacked by a Californian cougar reportedly weighing 160 pounds (72.57 lbs), but was saved by an adult that punched the big cat's ribs: https://abcnews.go.com/US/girl-attacked-...d=69027052
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Canada Balam Offline
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(09-25-2020, 05:09 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote: @Balam In February, a 6-year-old girl was attacked by a Californian cougar weighing 160 pounds (72.57 lbs), but was saved by an adult that punched the big cat's ribs: https://abcnews.go.com/US/girl-attacked-...d=69027052

Good find! A 70+ kg cougar from California is a large one.
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TheNormalGuy Offline
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There are possible sightings every year and hair posts of eastern cougars in Quebec. Forillon National Park talk about them oftenly in their talks/forums of information at night. Tracks, hairs are found and at least one possible sighting a year.

My father saw one in 1975 running down a field near Rivière-du-Loup, Qc.

"Extinct" - More like not officially seen, but many possible sighting, hair and tracks. Weird.
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Canada Balam Offline
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(09-25-2020, 05:32 PM)TheNormalGuy Wrote: There are possible sightings every year and hair posts of eastern cougars in Quebec. Forillon National Park talk about them oftenly in their talks/forums of information at night. Tracks, hairs are found and at least one possible sighting a year.

My father saw one in 1975 running down a field near Rivière-du-Loup, Qc.

"Extinct" - More like not officially seen, but many possible sighting, hair and tracks. Weird.
 There is a camera trap picture of a cougar in Quebec. There are a few of them roaming Quebec and here in Ontario as well.
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United States Pckts Offline
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(09-25-2020, 05:24 PM)Balam Wrote:
(09-25-2020, 05:09 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote: @Balam In February, a 6-year-old girl was attacked by a Californian cougar weighing 160 pounds (72.57 lbs), but was saved by an adult that punched the big cat's ribs: https://abcnews.go.com/US/girl-attacked-...d=69027052

Good find! A 70+ kg cougar from California is a large one.

Just an estimate, they haven't captured the Cougar yet.
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BorneanTiger Offline
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Are black cougars possible?

The term "black panther" is usually applied to a melanistic leopard (Panthera pardus) in the Old World, and a melanistic jaguar (Panthera onca) in the New World, but the cougar's range in the Americas is more extensive than that of the jaguar, with the former covering temperate areas in the southern extreme of South America, and the northern extreme of North America. It is worth mentioning that pumas can have colour variations, including albinism, and even spots: http://messybeast.com/genetics/mutant-pumas.html

This photo depicts a cougar shot in 1959 by Miguel Ruiz Herrero in the province of Guanacaste along Costa Rica's north Pacific coast. Estimated to weigh 100–120 lbs (45.359–54.431 kg), its carcass is seen here alongside Ruiz's herdsman, but what happened to it afterwards is unknown: http://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2012/08/t...ating.html
   

Painting of a black panther in North America confronting dogs, by William Rebsamen:
   
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Canada Balam Offline
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(09-25-2020, 11:16 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote: Are black cougars possible?

The term "black panther" is usually applied to a melanistic leopard (Panthera pardus) in the Old World, and a melanistic jaguar (Panthera onca) in the New World, but the cougar's range in the Americas is more extensive than that of the jaguar, with the former covering temperate areas in the southern extreme of South America, and the northern extreme of North America. It is worth mentioning that pumas can have colour variations, including albinism, and even spots: http://messybeast.com/genetics/mutant-pumas.html

This photo depicts a cougar shot in 1959 by Miguel Ruiz Herrero in the province of Guanacaste along Costa Rica's north Pacific coast. Estimated to weigh 100–120 lbs (45.359–54.431 kg), its carcass is seen here alongside Ruiz's herdsman, but what happened to it afterwards is unknown: http://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2012/08/t...ating.html


Painting of a black panther in North America confronting dogs, by William Rebsamen:

I've mentioned this video before but I'm surprised nobody has mentioned how the cougar in the video has a black coating. I highly doubt is paint as the coating is perfectly even throughout.




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TheNormalGuy Offline
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( This post was last modified: 09-28-2020, 12:24 AM by TheNormalGuy )

(09-25-2020, 11:16 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote: Are black cougars possible?

The term "black panther" is usually applied to a melanistic leopard (Panthera pardus) in the Old World, and a melanistic jaguar (Panthera onca) in the New World, but the cougar's range in the Americas is more extensive than that of the jaguar, with the former covering temperate areas in the southern extreme of South America, and the northern extreme of North America. It is worth mentioning that pumas can have colour variations, including albinism, and even spotshttp://messybeast.com/genetics/mutant-pumas.html

This photo depicts a cougar shot in 1959 by Miguel Ruiz Herrero in the province of Guanacaste along Costa Rica's north Pacific coast. Estimated to weigh 100–120 lbs (45.359–54.431 kg), its carcass is seen here alongside Ruiz's herdsman, but what happened to it afterwards is unknown: http://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2012/08/t...ating.html


Painting of a black panther in North America confronting dogs, by William Rebsamen:

Spots ? In adults individuals ? Although it is a normal idea to think that it got a high probability of occurring at least somewhere in the distribution of the animal, I didn't notice anywhere that it was recorded or described. Perphaps, a "spotted cougar" is just an animal with hair loss, an animal with an slight difference of color across its own pelage. I can compare it to a bighorn sheep in Jasper NP 

[Note : it is a nearly exaggerated comparison] : They molt. Describing a ewe in early summer will have an mix of small patches of winter coat and normal summer coat. The color of winter coat is more white to blend in with the snow while their summer coat is more gray-brown to match the snowless rockies mountains of the summer.





*This image is copyright of its original author


Leucistic mountain lions exists, that's for sure. Albinos also, an high probability. 

Melanistic is not scientifically recorded among mountains lions and as far as anyone can try to prove that one can be, their links (references and proofs) aren't precise and covered by scientific news coverage and litterature.

Not to disrespect those pictures and the claims & descriptions of these sites ("references"), but they are vague and "blurry" as the truth/accuracy of the account/claim can be judge.

Trust me, if a real melanistic cougar is pictured, the news will be worldwide coverage in biology, ecology and zoology medias and litterature.

For example, when they first photograph a black leopard in Africa somewhere near 2013, it was the first time a black leopard was photographed in the African Continent in a century.

I and Balam had a conversation on that topic before in another forum, and none of us two could find anything confirming a melanistic cougar. The video of the "Black cougar" isn't viral, nor did it make any feline, ecology news coverage and etc... and the picture and description of the man posing with the 1959 "cougar" is probably just a dark-brown cougar being hung under a tree with shade.

Furthermore, the photography is in black & white [which is unfortunate because a colored picture would had clarified many things]. 

My opinion on this picture is that the person shoot and harvest a dark-brown cougar and then claimed it to be melanistic for reactions and awe 

Paintings have an freestyle liberty and one is to make the most important subject of one painting come out of the lot. Also, bringing cryptic species or rares color forms of animals is recurrent and oftenly done in painting.

Black Wolves, Black Leopards are probably and assurely more present in paintings than white wolves or leopards. It also express the kind of somewhat relic and antique symbols of colors :  that the colors each have theirs values.

For example : Red is power, action, independence. White is a symbol of purety, virginity & stuff like that. Green would be what the land give you. Black is the chaotic, mythic, mysterious figure and also the symbol of the "presence of death" figure [Death, Death threat, Defuncts, Funerals, etc]. 

It isn't by coincidence that the bride wear white [usually] at an marriage and that people wear black clothes at funerals. By tradition, only after the marriage would she be "legally in the right" to have babies and we wear black to acknowledge, accept, remember that life always lose to the death at one point and that we must carry on.

Quote:"White is a primary color across all models of colour space. It most often symbolizes perfection, faith, innocence, softness, and cleanlinessBrides often wear white dresses to symbolize virginity or purity."

- "Meaning of The Color White |" & "Why Do Brides Wear White? And Other Questions" 

Quote:"Black is a primary color across all models of colour space. In Western culture, it is considered a negative color and usually symbolizes death, grief, or evil.[18] People often wear black for mourning, although this practice isn't as widespread as it was in the past"

"Black Color Psychology - Black Meaning & Personality" & Jalland, Pat (7 November 1996), "Death and the Victorian Doctors", Death in the Victorian Family, Oxford University Press, pp. 77–97,


In fact, you can see the normal white color of the underbelly and the lower portion of the head.

To conclude my view on the topic,

Melanistic cougar is somewhat tied to cryptology as well as the like of "Blue Tigers" , "Black Lions"  or "Maltese Tigers".

Note : that a Jaguar-Lion hybrid can be black [If the jaguar parent is melanistic], because the black color gene of the jaguar is dominant on the color genes of lions.
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Canada Balam Offline
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Scars tell a tale of a warrior, Utah


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By Kelli Pool
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Massive male was seen at Weir Canyon, California


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By Irvine Ranch Conservacy
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https://www.instagram.com/p/CKYyWbsH7HP/?igshid=145iutd6m0kak

Drew Trush footage  !
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Canada Balam Offline
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Spotted near LA
These Californian mtn lions are looking very healthy and large, likely the result of hunting being banned in the state and plenty of available prey


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By Claw LA
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Canada Balam Offline
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New Mexico


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By Kris Seymour
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Canada Balam Offline
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@TheNormalGuy have you seen this?

Cougar appears on trail camera northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont.


*This image is copyright of its original author

There has been another cougar photographed just outside of Thunder Bay, Ont.

On Monday evening, an adult cougar showed up on trail camera owned by Adam Massaro. Massaro said he normally has a lot of lynx on his property, located five kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay in Kaministiquia, but he had never seen a cougar.

"I was walking down to check my trail cam [Wednesday night]," Massaro said, "and I noticed the cat tracks in the snow and they looked quite a bit bigger than a lynx. So I sent a picture of them to my fiance as a joke and said 'maybe there is a cougar around' and I checked the camera and yup, that's what it was."

Massaro said there is a good chance the cougar was looking for deer on his property, where he has a mineral block and some alfalfa out to feed the deer near the trail camera. There are also often quite a few snowshoe hare showing on his camera, Massaro added.

"It looked like the cat might have got a rabbit, but it was hard to be sure," he said. "It hung around for six minutes."

Massaro said the cougar was just under 300 metres from his house.


*This image is copyright of its original author

"It actually walked close to my house," he said. "It walked down the trail from my hunting stand area, then must have seen the house and took a 90 into the bush."


Massaro shared nearly a dozen of the trail camera photos of the cougar with CBC News.

The cat appears around 8:31 p.m. on Monday, and is still hanging around at 8:36 p.m. The cougar is large, healthy and in several shots seems to be yawning. There has been a flurry of cougar activity around Thunder Bay over the past few months. In November, two pictures of a cougar said to be from a trail camera near Lappe, a community northwest of Thunder Bay, made the rounds on social media, but they were unattributed.

Massaro said those pics from November were apparently taken not far from his home.


*This image is copyright of its original author

On Dec. 31, Chris Maley had a cougar appear on his trail camera located near his home off Highway 61, southwest of Thunder Bay.

The 15-second video was clear and showed a large, mature cougar. While Maley's cougar video and Massaro's trail cam pictures are rare confirmed examples, the presence of cougars in the northwest has been established.


*This image is copyright of its original author

On March 25, 2017, the carcass of a cougar was found frozen in a snowbank on Boreal Road, northwest of Thunder Bay. The animal was emaciated and had likely died due to starvation. That cougar had a large number of porcupine quills in its snout, mouth and throat. It was the first confirmed wild cougar carcass found in Ontario.


The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry seized the carcass and had the animal tested. The DNA results showed it was closely related to animals from the region of the Black Hills of Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska. The ministry said at the time that the animal found dead was not part of a resident cougar population in northern Ontario.
Cougars are considered an endangered species in the province.

Source

This are amazing news because they confirm that the Eastern cougar has returned, or perhaps it never went fully extinct, and instead few individuals remained in these provinces hidden away in remote areas.
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