History of Taxonomy
In 1792, Robert Kerr of the Royal Physical Society and Royal Society of Surgeons assigned the name Felis couguar to eastern North America cougars north of Florida. John Audubon in 1851 believed that cougars in both North and South America were indistinguishable. The eastern cougar was first assigned to the subspecies Felis concolor couguar in 1929 by Nelson and Goldman. Young and Goldman in 1946 described 15 subspecies in North America including the eastern cougar Felis concolor couguar and the Florida panther F. c. coryi. Young and Goldman based their description of the eastern subspecies on their examination of eight of the existing 26 historic specimens. In 1955, Jackson described a new subspecies, the Wisconsin puma (P. c. schorgeri), from a small sample of skulls.
A 1981 taxonomy (Hall) accepted F. c. schorgeri, the Wisconsis puma, and also extended the range of the eastern puma into Nova Scotia and mapped the Florida panther’s (F. c. coryi) range as far north as South Carolina and southwestern Tennessee.
In 2000, Culver et al., recommended that based on recent genetic research, all North American cougars be classified as a single subspecies, Puma concolor couguar. following the oldest named subspecies (Kerr in 1792).
The 2005 edition of Mammal Species of the World (Wilson and Reeder 2005) followed Culver’s recommendations. This revision was made by Dr. W. Chris Wozencraft of Bethel University, Indiana, as the sole reviewer. However, the publication's Web site as of 2011, as well as that of its affiliate, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, continued to mention the Puma concolor couguar (or eastern cougar) as a subspecies of Puma concolor.
Dr. Judith Eger, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, chair of the American Society of Mammalogists checklist committee, believes that the Culver work was improper, as it offered no evaluation of the existing subspecies of the puma and failed to include morphological, ecological, and behavioral considerations. According to Eger, the Culver revision is only accepted by some puma biologists. (ref FWS 2011)
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continues to accept the Young and Goldman taxonomy. "While more recent genetic information introduces significant ambiguities, a full taxonomic analysis is necessary to conclude that a revision to the Young and Goldman (1946) taxonomy is warranted," the agency said in 2011.
Read more about this topic: Eastern Cougar
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