This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

Welcome to Brain Stuff, a production of IHeart Radio.

Hey, Brainstuff.

Lauren Vogelbottom here.

The Cougar holds one of the Guinness World Records for having the most names.

It's referred to as the Puma,

Panther, Mountain Cat, Mountain Lion, Mountain Screamer, Painter, and Catamount,

just to list a few. The cougar has more monikers than almost any other living mammal,

around 40 in English alone. That's because the name used for this animal

depends on its location, and there are a lot of those across the Americas. Cougars have a fast and

powerful, muscular body, sharp eyesight, and keen hearing, as well as the ability to swim,

climb trees, and jump long distances.

This adaptability means cougars can be found thriving in many varied habitats, from the

southern Andes in South America to the Yukon in Canada, and everywhere from forests to deserts.

The different names evolved from local peoples.

Around the Inca Empire on the western coast of what's now South America, the animal was called

Apuma. The Guarani peoples from further east had a word that I'm not sure of the pronunciation

of that eventually became cougar when Europeans arrived.

A panther roots from an ancient Greek term for mid-sized cats, and mountain lion was probably

coined by Spanish colonizers who labeled the animal both Lyon, meaning lion, and Gatolmonte,

meaning cat of the mountain.

...