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Hunting and diet

The cougar is a generalist hypercarnivore. It prefers large mammals such as mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, moose, mountain goat and bighorn sheep. It opportunistically takes smaller prey such as rodents, lagomorphs, smaller carnivores, birds, and even domestic animals, including pets. The mean weight of cougar vertebrate prey increases with its body weight and is lower in areas closer to the equator. A survey of North America research found 68% of prey items were ungulates, especially deer. Only the Florida panther showed variation, often preferring feral hogs and armadillos. Cougars have been known to prey on introduced gemsbok populations in New Mexico. One individual cougar was recorded as hunting 29 gemsbok, which made up 58% of its recorded kills. Most gemsbok kills were neonates, but some adults were also known to have been taken. Elsewhere in the southwestern United States, they have been recorded to also prey on feral horses in the Great Basin, as well as feral donkeys in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts.

Investigations at Yellowstone National Park showed that elk and mule deer were the cougar's primary prey; the prey base is shared with the park's wolves, with which the cougar competes for resources. A study on winter kills from November to April in Alberta showed that ungulates accounted for greater than 99% of the cougar diet. Learned, individual prey recognition was observed, as some cougars rarely killed bighorn sheep, while others relied heavily on the species.

In the Central and South American cougar range area, the ratio of deer in the diet declines. Small to mid-sized mammals, including large rodents such as the capybara, are preferred. Ungulates accounted for only 35% of prey items in one survey, about half that of North America. Competition with the larger jaguar in South America has been suggested for the decline in the size of prey items. In Central or North America, the cougar and jaguar share the same prey, depending on its abundance. Other listed prey species of the cougar include mice, porcupines, American beavers, raccoons, hares, guanacoes, peccaries, vicuñas, rheas and wild turkeys. Birds and small reptiles are sometimes preyed upon in the south, but this is rarely recorded in North America. Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus magellanicus) constitute the majority of prey items in cougar diet in Patagonia 's Bosques Petrificados de Jaramillo National Park and Monte León National Park.

Although capable of sprinting, the cougar is typically an ambush predator. It stalks through brush and trees, across ledges, or other covered spots, before delivering a powerful leap onto the back of its prey and a suffocating neck bite. The cougar can break the neck of some of its smaller prey with a strong bite and momentum bearing the animal to the ground. Kills are generally estimated around one large ungulate every two weeks. The period shrinks for females raising young, and may be as short as one kill every three days when cubs are nearly mature around 15 months. The cat drags a kill to a preferred spot, covers it with brush, and returns to feed over a period of days. The cougar is generally reported to not be a scavenger, but deer carcasses left exposed for study were scavenged by cougars in California, suggesting more opportunistic behavior.