Pumas are too small to be as big as leopards. Really? Why?

Puma is not a lion, so don't be misled by its Chinese name. It has a long-standing relationship with lions, and it is also closely related to thin-waisted cats and cheetahs.

▲ The lion is on the top and the puma is on the bottom. Puma has no stripes and looks a bit like a lioness, so it is named "Puma".

Pumas are not golden cats either. Although it is written in wj Encyclopedia, bd Encyclopedia or sg Encyclopedia that puma belongs to the genus Golden Cat, I don't know who took the name of this "Golden Cat" at the beginning, which caused endless harm. Originally, some people on the Internet like to take such misleading generic and scientific names, as the name implies. But there is nothing we can do about it, because there are too many kinds of animals, but there are only a few thousand commonly used Chinese characters, and even fewer nouns. Therefore, judging the species of animals can't be as the name implies, but it is necessary to clarify its classification. Pumas have many nicknames. The most famous is the mountain lion, the loudest is Elvis Presley, and Puma also refers to Puma. Pumas, slender-waisted cats and cheetahs all belong to the pedigree of pumas, and they branched off about 4 million years ago. The skeleton structure and facial contour of puma are somewhat similar to that of cheetah, and the highest speed of puma is second only to cheetah in cats. Pumas and cheetahs are the only two big cats among cats. A slender-waisted cat is a small cat with hooves on both sides of its mouth, which is a bit like a puma.

There has always been a debate about who is the fourth largest cat, and the competitors are puma and leopard. On the whole, pumas are slightly larger than leopards, both of which are widely distributed and vary greatly within species.

The largest number of pumas is in Canada, with an average of 765,438+0 kg for males and 44 kg for females. The population of Janas Plain is the smallest, with an average of 565,438+0 kg for men and 25.5 kg for women. On the whole, the average male puma is 60 kg and the average female puma is 38 kg.

The largest subspecies of leopard is Persian leopard, with an average of 66 kilograms for males and 45 kilograms for females. The smallest subspecies is Arabian leopard, with an average of 28kg for males and 2 1kg for females. On the whole, leopards average 50 kilograms for males and 32 kilograms for females.

But when it comes to scientific research records, leopard has great advantages. The measured weight of the leopard is 1 15 kg, and it is also a seriously injured and dying leopard. The weight of puma measured in scientific research is less than 90kg, but there is a hunting record of 125kg. Puma has several hunting records above 100kg, but the reliability of hunting data is naturally not as good as that of scientific research data.

Generally speaking, leopards and cougars are similar in size, but it is generally believed that leopards are stronger than cougars, because leopards have the hardware blessing of Leopainae, but these two cats can't meet in nature, so it is boring to fight animals at a long distance.

Puma is not a lion, you can say it is a golden cat, the biggest cat. Let me briefly talk about the relationship between cats:

Lions, tigers, leopards, leopards and snow leopards are closely related and belong to the same cat family? Leopard subfamily? Leopard, they belong to the same family, different species.

Among them, the leopard has the most subspecies, with 9 subspecies, namely: African leopard, North China leopard, Far East leopard, Persian leopard, cheetah, Indian zhina leopard, Arabian leopard, Java leopard and Sri Lankan leopard.

Other names with the word "leopard" are not leopard species, such as snow leopard, cheetah, jaguar and clouded leopard.

Puma, cat? Cat subfamily golden cat? Puma is a species, so Puma is not a lion, and its relationship with lion is far away, not as close as leopard and lion.

Cheetah, cat? Cat subfamily cheetah? Cheetah species, so cheetahs are not leopards, and are much closer to pumas than leopards.

Finally, talk about hyenas. Hyenas belong to Carnivora? Schizophrenia? Cat superfamily? Hyenas? Hyenas? Hyenas, hyenas also have several subfamilies.

Note that cats and hyenas are separated from Catoidea, so hyenas are closer to cats than canines. However, hyenas are not cats, and there are four families in the cat superfamily: cats, civets and hyenas.

Cats are divided into leopard subfamily and cat subfamily. There used to be Cheetah subfamily, but now it is merged into Cat subfamily.

These two subfamilies, in short, leopard subfamily is relatively large, and cat subfamily is relatively small. Of course, it is not absolute. The smaller one in Leopard subfamily may be smaller than the larger one in Cat subfamily.

Leopard subfamily is divided into two genera, one is leopard, including lion, tiger, leopard (leopard or leopard), jaguar (also known as jaguar) and snow leopard. The other is clouded leopard, including clouded leopard and Sunda clouded leopard.

There are about 10 genera in Cat subfamily, among which Puma is "American Golden Cat".

Let's compare the size of puma and leopard.

Puma, body length 1.24- 1.38m, tail length about 7 1-79cm, total length between 1.5-2.75m, shoulder height 60-90cm；;

Males weigh 53- 100 kg, females weigh 29-64 kg, with an average weight of 42-62 kg.

The leopard, on the other hand, has a body length of 1- 1.7m, a tail length of 0.7- 1.0m, a healthy weight of about 60- 100kg, and the heaviest weight can reach 130kg.

From the comparison of two cats, we can see that:

In terms of body length, the range of puma body length is small, the smallest leopard is shorter than the smallest puma, but the longest leopard is much longer than the longest puma. The shortest tail length of the two animals is basically the same, and the longest leopard is longer.

In terms of weight, there is a great difference between male and female pumas, both of which are much smaller than males. The lioness is much smaller than the leopard, and the heaviest individual of the lioness is only about the same as the lightest individual of the leopard, while the lightest individual of the lioness is less than half of the lightest individual of the leopard, and the heaviest individual of the lioness is only about two-thirds of the heaviest individual of the leopard.

The male puma and leopard are close, and the heaviest one is basically the same, but the lightest leopard weighs more than 10% than the lightest male puma. These are rare super-large leopards.

This shows that leopards are indeed bigger than cougars.

As for why, there is nothing to answer. According to the classification of the two animals, leopards originally belonged to the leopard subfamily (big cats), while cougars belonged to the cat subfamily (small and medium cats). Is it strange that leopards are bigger than cougars? You can't grow up with lions. Sea lions are not as big as seals.

You are still compared to a leopard. If you are compared to a jaguar, you may bump into tofu.