And the Guinness World Record for the animal with the most names goes to….. the cougar!
There are well over 40 different English names for the animal Albertans call ‘cougar’, and many more names in other languages. This huge cat was once found throughout North and South America, so it’s no surprise that different cultures gave it a name in their own language and legends.
- Before the Incas, South American Indians living in the highlands of the Andes Mountains, named the large, tawny cat ‘puma’. In the Quechua language, ‘puma’ means ‘powerful animal’. The cat’s scientific name is puma concolor.
Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca observed cougars in Florida in the early 1500s
- Other indigenous cultures gave the cat many more names. In Brazil, ‘cuguacuarana’ or ‘cuguar’ eventually became the word we know, ‘cougar’. In New Brunswick, the Maliseet named the cat ‘pi-twal’ meaning ‘long-tailed one’.
- Early Spanish explorers gave the cat names as well, including ‘leon’, meaning ‘lion’ and ‘gato monte’ meaning ‘cat of the mountains’.
- The name ‘panther’ is a general term for a cat with a solid colour of coat.
- Early settlers, explorers and hunters were fearful of the large predator, and gave it names like ‘swamp screamer’, ‘ghost cat’, ‘night crier’, ‘swamp devil’, ‘wild cat’, and ‘ghost walker’.
My favourite regional name for cougar is ‘catamount’. The westerns I read as a kid sometimes referred to a ‘catamount’, which seemed exotic and foreign. ‘Catamount’ is short for ‘cat-a-mountain’, referring to a medium-sized or large wild cat, like a lynx or cougar, in the northeastern United States.
What is the common name for cougar where you live? Do you know any other names for puma concolor?
