Research overview: spatial organisation and communication in pumas

Pumas, also called cougars or mountain lions, are solitary felids whose social lives revolve around spatial organisation maintained largely through scent communication. This overview surveys GPS and field research revealing community scrapes that function as shared signposts where multiple individuals deposit and inspect marks, the broad overlapping ranges of males over several females, and recently documented instances of food sharing and tolerance that complicate the strictly solitary picture. It discusses how scrapes coordinate spacing, mate finding, and dominance signalling across vast home ranges. The topic shows how an apparently asocial predator sustains a structured communication network without frequent direct contact.