Florida Panther
Fun Facts

• Juvenile panthers are just like human teenagers - requiring more food and sleep than younger kittens.

• Panthers, a subspecies of cougar, have such a strong instinct to cover prey that one female cougar in the barren landscape of Arizona was observed placing a single twig on a deer carcass before leaving.

• The word "cougar" is from a South American Indian language and translates to "false deer." The Indians chose this name because the cougar can blend into the same habitat as its prey.

• Panthers go by many other names including mountain lion, fire cat, catamount, cougar, painter, puma and klandagi, which means "lord of the forest" in Cherokee.

• The home range of a male Florida panther is 400 times the size of Disney's Magic Kingdom and the home range of a female is 150 times the Magic Kingdom's size.

• One Seminole Indian clan is named The Panther Clan.

• Seminole Indians warn their children to be quiet in the early evening when the panther is hunting so as not to scare away the panther's prey. Seminoles believe that scaring away the prey will bring illness to their village.

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