Mountain Lion (Cougar) Scat

Mountain Lion
(Cougar) Scat

mountain lion, cougar, puma scat

This huge cougar scat was found in Washington. It was found by participants in a CyberTracker evaluation and brought back to the Tracking 2011 conference for everyone to see. Nice huge scat! I've never seen a cougar scat this big!

mountain lion, cougar, puma scat found in
northern California

Here's a cougar scat from my local area. They are quite large.

mountain lion, cougar, puma scat found in
Washington

Another view of the Washington cougar scat. The cougar is also called the mountain lion, puma, or panther.
All are common names for the same animal, known as Puma concolor to scientists.

A beautiful example of puma (mountain lion) scat. Their scats often have this appearance like little round balls. You can see bone fragments and fur in this sample. The ball-like appearance is typically found in cougar scats. They are quite firm. You cannot easily squash these scats with a stick. Firmness and size help to rule out coyote scat, which can be close, but not quite the same size.
(Photo donated by Dave Berry. Thanks!)

Cougar, Puma, Mountain Lion Videos

Many species on video from a trail camera

Cougar, mountain lion, puma video from my trail camera

This cougar scat is an old one. It had whitened from sitting out in the weather. There were some dark hairs in this one, from the prey the cougar had been feeding on. Cougars will deposit their scat in the middle of trails and dirt roads as a territorial marking. They will sometimes scrape together a pile of debris and urinate or defecate on it. This is another form of territorial marking. Cougar scats are segmented and the ends are rounder than those of canines. They can be over an inch in diameter. These ones were about an inch across. They had dried and probably shrunk as they aged. The penny used for scale is 3/4 inch in diameter.

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