Cat eyes

It was snowing lightly as I walked around the zoo at Como Park late afternoon yesterday, and it was feeding time for some of the animals.  This cougar was behind two   wire screen fences, so it was impossible to get a clear photo of him (or her).  But the cat was obviously restless, as it was pacing back and forth right along the wire fence, perhaps waiting for its dinner.  It would stop for a second or two and stare into the next pen, where one of the zoo keepers was walking around.  What intrigued me were the expressions in the eyes of the animal as it paced, and stared.  (Try to ignore the wires that obscure the view of this magnificent animal.)

Look at the change in the position of eyes and ears in this and the next two photos.

Does the cat look upset about something, like maybe the lack of food?  Note progressive squinting of the eyes, forward movement of the head level with its body, and backward deflection of ears in the bottom two photos.

I’m glad this fence was here, because this behavior looks like a prelude to attack.  Maybe the cat saw a squirrel in the next enclosure, or maybe it really didn’t like the zookeeper over there, but something was ticking the cat off.

Fun facts about cougars (or pumas, panthers, mountain lions, catamounts)

• They are the largest North America cat, and the fourth largest cat in the world.  They use their weight to their advantage when attacking prey by knocking them off their feet and then jumping on the neck to sever the animal’s vertebral column.
• They can jump 18 feet straight up, and 40 feet horizontally on a run.  They can pick up and drag a full-grown elk away from the kill site to hide the carcass from other predators.
• They can run 40-50 miles per hour, but only for short distances.  They’re world-class sprinters, not marathoners.
• The species is one of the most adaptable predators on earth.  It lives in almost every habitat throughout North and South America from arctic cold to equatorial hot zones, arid desert to lush forest.  And it eats anything and everything from insects to elk.

Robert Redford wrote the foreward to the seminal volume on Mountain Lions, which is free online, if you care to read more about this interesting cat. Good action and still photos of cougars can be found at: