Puma lacustris

The lake cat is an extinct species of Puma from the Blancan stage. The type specimen is a partial fragment piece of the right side of the mandible retaining canine and cheek-teeth found in the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument from Idaho. The holotype was described in 1933 by Gazin who considered a smaller relative of the cougar. The taxonomic identity has been uncertain at times, as a relationship to lynxes has been purposed. Additional specimens of this species of Puma have been found elsewhere in North America, such as Washington, California, Arizona, Texas, and Baja California.

Puma lacustris

Michael Brett-Surman · CC0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
PumaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Puma
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Felidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 8 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 9.4 Mya and 1.4 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Miocene — about 2 of 11 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 6 of 11 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 3 of 11 occurrencesPleistocene9.6–9.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences9.3–9.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.0–8.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.7–8.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.4–8.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.1–7.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.8–7.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.5–7.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.2–6.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.9–6.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.6–6.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.3–6.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.0–5.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.7–5.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.4–5.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.1–4.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.8–4.5 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences4.5–4.2 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences4.2–3.9 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences3.9–3.6 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences3.6–3.3 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences3.3–3.0 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences3.0–2.7 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.7–2.4 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.4–2.1 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.1–1.8 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences1.8–1.5 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences1.5–1.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences9.9 Mya900 ka

11 occurrences of Puma lacustris on record, most of them in the Pliocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

11 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

4 formations

Palm Spring — 32.90°N, 117.10°WBlanco — 33.70°N, 101.10°WChalk Hills — 42.77°N, 115.92°WChalk Hills — 42.73°N, 115.87°WRingold — 47.00°N, 118.50°W

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The named rock units Puma lacustris has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Puma lacustris and its relatives

Pliocene

Where Puma lacustris and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.

Found in the same rock

160 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Puma lacustris, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

6 references

Each of the 11 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Puma lacustris

Credit
Michael Brett-Surman
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Puma lacustris was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itPuma through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gazin 1933)