Pumas are not the Americas’ largest cat species; jaguars are. Jaguars are of the Panthera genus, which also includes tigers, lions and leopards. Perhaps you meant to say North America’s largest cat species, but even then you’d be wrong as there are still populations of Jaguars living in Mexico. And even if you meant to say “America’s” as in the United States’ (rather than “the Americas’”), you’d still be wrong as there have been occasional sightings in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas and historically Jaguars lived as far north as the Grand Canyon and as far west as southern California. So any way you slice it, cougars are not the largest species of cats. They do, however, have the largest range of any large mammal in the Americas, historically ranging from the southern tip of South America all the way up into Canada. Good to see that they are starting to recover some in the East.

Panther, mountain lion, cougar, panther…you left off “catamount.”