GabyRosales+-+Cougar

Type in the content of your page here. =Cougar= Cougar. Often called or recognized as the mountain lions, pumas, Mexican lions, red tigers, deer cat, Mountain Devil, king cat, silver lion, mountain screamers, panthers, or catamount. Either way, we mostly know them as cougars.

Habitat & Location
Cougars live in the South America Andes. They inhabit rocky canyons, deserts, prairies, swamps and tropical rain forests.

Niche
Cougars have a very big and tasty meal. They eat a variety of many animals. Starting from small to large. Like mice, rats and rabbits. They also eat sheep, moose, deer and other mammals. They hunt all day, from dusk till dawn. Cougars can be fairly large. Adult male length can be up to 9 ft. Females can be up to 7 ft. Male cougars weigh from 150-230 lbs. Females weight from 80-130 lbs. Some cougars can weigh more than 300 lb.! Depending on the cougars location, is the color of their coat. Their coat will be more gray in cold regions. In warm regions it'll be more to a reddish brown. Cougars can live up to 15 years in the wild and over 20 years in captivity. Female cougars sexually mature at about 2.5 years of age; males 3-4 years. They're solitary cats, that mate for 3-4 weeks only in the winter or early spring to 2 or 3 cubs. When cougar cubs are born, they're born with their eyes closed and after 2 weeks they open up with blue eyes and take about 16 months to change to greenish-yellow. When born, they weight not 5 pounds, but 1! They're nursed for about 3-4 months and remain with the mother for 18-24 months. Commensalism is their relationship with other animals. They hunt and eat other organisms which benefits them. Cougars don't really have a competition with other animals. They have a variety of meals so no other animal can fight with them because they can just hunt for more.
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P opulation Expansion
The cougar is perfect as a replacement for the California Condor. The California Condor is a big bird which has a big appetite. It eats everything a cougar eats. They're both found on the mountains or tropical forests. Both are active day and night, they eat mice, rats, rabbits, up to large mammals. So when the California Condor goes extinct, there would be no affect on other organisms because the cougar takes its place.
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S pecies in Competition
Both the Cougar and the California Condor are endangered animals. It probably wouldn't take that long for the cougar to take over the california condors niche. They're very similar in diets and how they live just different animals.

W ork Cited
//www.zoo.org/factsheets/cougar/cougar.html www.wildlifesurvival.com/cougarinfo.htm//