Content deleted Content added
→Taxonomy: tweak unit |
m →Taxonomy: tweak again |
||
Line 39:
==Taxonomy==
The cougar is the largest of the "[[big cat|small cat]]s". While its bulk characteristics are similar to the species of ''[[Panthera]]'' it is more closely related to small and mid-sized felines. It was originally placed in ''[[Felis]]'', a genus which includes the [[domestic cat]], and was reviewed as such as late as 1983. It is now placed in the ''Puma'' genus along with the [[jaguarundi]], a cat just a little more than a tenth its weight. Culver ''et al.'' report that the cougar, jaguarundi, and [[African cheetah]] share a common ancestor dated to 5 to 8 [[mya (unit)|mya]].<ref name=Culver>{{cite journal | author = Culver, M. | coauthors = Johnson, W.E., Pecon-Slattery, J., O'Brein, S.J. | date = 2000 | title = Genomic Ancestry of the American Puma | journal = Journal of Heredity | volume = 91 | issue = 3 | pages = 186-197 | url = http://www.coryi.org/Florida_panther/Miscellaneous_Panther_Material/Genomic%20ancestry%20of%20the%20American%20puma.pdf | format = PDF}}</ref> Johnson ''et al.'', writing in 2006, support the relationship among the three cats.<ref name=Johnson2006>{{cite journal | author = Johnson, W.E., Eizirik, E., Pecon-Slattery, J., Murphy, W.J., Antunes, A., Teeling, E. & O'Brien, S.J. | year = 2006 | url = http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/311/5757/73 | title = The Late Miocene radiation of modern Felidae: A genetic assessment. | journal = [[Science (journal)|Science]] | volume = 311 | pages = 73-77}}</ref> They note that the ''Puma'' lineage shares a [[clade]] with the ''[[Lynx]],'' leopard cat (''[[Prionailurus]]''), and domestic cat (''Felis'') lineages. A common ancestor of these and the [[ocelot]] lineage (''[[Leopardus]]'') is suggested to have migrated to the Americas between 8 and 8.5
Up until the late 1990s, as many as 32 different subspecies were recorded, although Culver indicates that many of these are too genetically similar to be retained as distinct. The study suggests that the original North American subspecies of ''Puma concolor'' became extinct during the [[Pleistocene extinctions]] some 10,000 years ago and that North America was then repopulated by South American cougars, leading to the genetic similarity of modern North American cougars.<ref name=Culver/> The canonical ''[[Mammal Species of the World]]'' (3rd edition) now recognizes six subspecies, following the research.<ref name=MSW3/>
| |||