Seeing a mountain lion
Seeing a mountain lion is rare even where many live, since these big cats move chiefly at dawn and dusk and avoid people. The same animal is called cougar, puma, panther or catamount depending on where you meet it.
What it may mean
Few animals have been named as often as this one. Guinness World Records lists the puma as the mammal with the most names, more than forty in English alone. In the Rockies it is a cougar or a mountain lion, in Florida a panther, in South America a puma, and in colonial New England a catamount. Each name came from someone who met the same cat in a different place and called it after what they already knew. People collect names in a similar way. One person is Mom at home, the boss at work, a nickname among old friends and a formal title on paper, and each name catches a different side. A sighting of this rare, secretive cat is a reminder that every name says as much about whoever gave it as about the one who carries it.
Depending on how you saw it
Tracks in mud or snow
Mountain lion tracks are round, with four toes and usually no claw marks, since the cat keeps its claws pulled in while it walks. Most people who live in cougar country know the animal only from prints like these. Which presence near you do you know mainly by its traces?
On a night camera in the hills
Night cameras in hills near towns often show a cougar walking past in the small hours, a few yards from a path people use every day. How do you feel when you learn that something wild has been your neighbor all along?
A Florida panther
The Florida panther is a small population of the same species, living in the forests and swamps of South Florida, where wildlife crossings have been built under highways for it. Which group near you needs a little more room to move than it has?
Why it happens in nature
The mountain lion ranges from western Canada to the southern Andes, more widely than any other large wild land mammal in the Americas. It preys mainly on deer, hunts chiefly at twilight and keeps away from people, so many residents of cougar country never see one. It cannot roar but makes whistles, chirps and screams.
To reflect on
Which of the names people use for you feels most like you, and which have you simply grown used to?