240 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



FLORIDA COUGAR 

 FELIS CONCOLOR CORYI Bangs 



Felis coryi Bangs, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, vol. 13, p. 15, Jan. 31, 1899 ("Wilder- 

 ness back of Sebastian, Brevard County, Florida"). 



SYNONYMS: Felis concolor floridana Cory, Hunting and Fishing in Florida, p. 109, 1896 

 (not Felis floridana Desmarest, 1820); Felis arundivaga Hollister, Proc. Biol. Soc. 

 Washington, vol. 24, p. 176, June 16, 1911 ("12 miles south of Vidalia, Concordia 

 Parish, Louisiana"). 



The puma of the Florida Peninsula and the adjacent parts of 

 southern Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana is a brighter- 

 colored animal and smaller than the eastern puma, of a "rich 

 ferruginous or intense rusty red" above, with smaller feet. 

 Hollister, in describing the Louisiana puma as distinct, sepa- 

 rated it partly on the basis of its color, which is a "grayish 

 fawn . . . with a decided cast of ecru drab," especially 

 on flanks and legs. Since, however, Nelson and Goldman 

 (1929) have relegated this name to the synonymy of the 

 Florida puma, it seems evident that his description applies to 

 the grayer color phase of the same animal. Hollister describes 

 the skull as "much larger than the skulls of F. couguar, with 

 well developed crest and much larger nasals" and ear bullae. 

 The condylobasal length of the skull in an adult male described 

 by this author was 193.5 mm.; greatest length of nasals, 63. 



The Florida puma, though fairly common in many parts of 

 Florida and the adjacent States at the end of the last century, 

 has apparently become much reduced in numbers of late years. 

 Cory (1896), in his book "Hunting and Fishing in Florida," 

 has much to say of his experiences with this animal. He speaks 

 of it as "still not uncommon in the more unsettled portions of 

 the State" on both the east and the west coasts. He himself 

 had found tracks of seven in one week within 30 miles of Lake 

 Worth in southern Florida and mentions that one John Davis 

 had killed six in that region in the season of 1895. The Indians 

 reported to him that they were also "numerous" in the vicinity 

 of the Big Cypress south of Fort Myers on the western side of 

 the peninsula. Farther north they were even then less common 

 and were "scarce" on the peninsula east of the Indian River, 

 "but were common there a few years ago. " He recounts that 

 in the eighties a hunter named Quarterman killed several in 

 the vicinity of Canaveral, once making a double shot at two 

 old males that he discovered fighting. Outram Bangs, in 1898, 



