We call them mountain lions here in South Dakota. As a matter of fact the season on them just closed not too long ago.
(I live in Moscow, ten miles up the road from Pullman.) The problem I have with the “Go Cougs” signs everywhere is my inclination to see “Coug” rhyming with “Doug.”
I agree with you- I’ve lived in the west all my life- San Diego 54 years, Idaho 7 - and they’ve always been cougars.
And speaking of pumas, I’d always heard it pronounced “Pyooma” until a few years ago; now it seems everybody says “pooma” which sounds pretentious to me but is probably more correct.
.
[bolding mine]
I understand that black mountain lions probably don’t exist, but surely there are at least a few melanistic Jaguars?
I think “puma” is Spanish (hence, the reason these cats are called “pumas” in Central and South America), like “Cuba”, which Americans usually mispronounce as “Cyooba”, when it should be “Cooba”.
Though when I had my first pair of Puma running shoes back around 1980, everybody I knew pronounced the name “Pooma”, not “Pyooma”.
Yep. Both leopards (Old World) and jaguars (New World) can be black. Mountain lions, as you note, have been reported black but AFAIK never confirmed. Most people don’t think of jaguars as being a US species but I guess they do get up here.
In Florida I always heard them called “Florida panthers.” Wikipedia backs me up.
It was my understanding from some light reading that while all the North American variations are the same species, if you use the “can interbreed” definition, there are enough taxonomic differences that an expert can tell the regional cats apart. The Wiki article above notes that some consider the Florida panther the same species as the rest of the North American cougars, but others classify it as a separate subspecies (notably conservationists).
As someone who has lived in several regions of the country, “mountain lion” is the term I’ve always used in my head for the main species.
Rarely. They used to occur in the extreme Southwest of the US, but only one has been observed in many decades, and that was just recently. Seems they went extinct in the US but may be coming back. Those things are very cool.
Subspecies status is something biologist can argue about endlessly. Since the Florida population is cut off from the other populations, it makes sense to call them a subspecies.
And it would be odd for there to be a “mountain lion” in FL. The only mountains are in Orlando, and they’re fake.
Jaguars don’t AFAIK, but the jaguarundi, a sort of Cougar Lite, being somewhat smaller (though more robustly built) does occur in Florida and until very recently in Texas (possible but not definite survival there) and comes in two phases: colorado (light reddish-brown) and moro (“black”, actually deep grey). I’ve formed the impression from occasional references to the jaguarundi in stuff on other Neotropical animals that the moro phase is significantly more common, but cannot of course prove this. Colibri, any confirmation or correction?
(Note: despite the name, the jaguarundi and the cougar are each other’s closest relattives, the two species in genus Puma, and jaguarundi the name is of Brazilian origin, pronounced with an initial soft /zh/ sound, not English /dzh/ or Spanish /x/ for the J.
Come in melanistic versions or reach the United States? 
To be fair though they barely cross the border and as John Mace noted that might be only a very recent return after a prolonged absence.
Puma is a younger-ish woman who prefer younger guys, and Sabre Tooth is a considerably much older woman. There are three classifications now 
I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Hadn’t noticed until recently.
Wikipedia gives the names “eyra” for red and um “jaguarundi” for gray. I feel that the colorado is the “archetypical” jaguarundi, based on most pictures I’ve seen. But based on what you say and the names, the red one may just be more photogenic.
So what you’re saying is: it’s closer pronounced like shaguar-undi
I’ve lived here (Seattle area) all my life and to me it seems like a pretty equal amount of both terms in the news.
I just googled for King5 and Komo news and tried both terms and it looks like a pretty even split.
Actually, I hadn’t heard of the Florida population before, but apparently there are a number of sightings. That population is likely introduced. Historically it occurred in Texas and evidently Arizona as well.
Jaguarundis are much much smaller than pumas, being only about the size of a housecat (4-9 kg/9-20 lb). Interestingly that recent genetic work has shown that it is very closely related to the larger cat, essentially being a pygmy puma, and has now even been placed in the same genus as Puma yagouaroundi.
Offhand I don’t know what the ratio of dark and red phases is. I occasionally see them darting across roads here in Panama. As far as I can recall all the ones I have seen have been dark.
Were these sightings in the wild or more developed areas? Do you think the dark versions have a modern survival advantage that might have increased their frequency?
To be extra fair, the original quotation was “there are no black panthers in North America”. If they’re just barely crossing into the US, there’s got to be significant numbers in Mexico.
Mostly in forest in a national park that’s about a half-hour drive from Panama city.
It’s possible that dark and red morphs could have different values for camouflage in forest vs second growth where light levels are higher, but I doubt that that’s the reason. I haven’t heard that the red phase is more frequent in different habits, for example.
They’re usually called cougars around these parts.