Cougars have more names than any other animal in the world

Cougar is the most widely distributed big wild terrestrial animal in the Western Hemisphere, with a range that stretches from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America. It is a flexible, generalist species that may be found in the majority of American habitat types. It goes by numerous names, such as puma, mountain lion, catamount, mountain screamer, and panther, due to its extensive distribution. It should not surprise anyone at all that the cougar has such a wide range of names. Even within the same language, there are several variations of these names, some of which have Native American connections. The huge cat known as the cougar is indigenous to the Americas. The word "cougar," which was originally taken from the Tupi language, was adopted from the Portuguese word "çuçuarana" via French. While in everyday life it may generally be referred to as a mountain lion, scientists frequently prefer to refer to these cunning predators as "pumas." This is because their scientific name is Puma Concolor.

The cougar has a Guinness World Record. The animal with the most names is this one. There are 40 distinct ways to refer to the cougar in English alone. Most of Europe and Latin America refers to cougars by the term "puma." In the US, the word "puma" is also occasionally used. The word "puma" was first used in English in 1777 and was borrowed from the Quechua language. It is also known as "mountain lion" in the western United States and Canada, this term was first recorded in literature in 1858. It is thought that the name came from how similar the colors of lions and cougars are.