Short answers, pulled from the story.
The cougar holds the Guinness record for the animal with the greatest number of names, with over 40 in English alone. Different names reflect different linguistic origins: cougar derives from the Tupi language via Portuguese and French; puma comes from the Quechua language via Spanish; and catamount, meaning cat of the mountain, has been in English use since at least 1664.
The cougar has the most extensive range of any wild land animal in the Americas, spanning 110 degrees of latitude from the Yukon in Canada to the southern Andes in Chile. It lives in all forest types, lowland and mountainous deserts, and open areas with little vegetation at elevations up to 5800 m.
In North America, ungulates such as mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, and moose make up about 68% of the cougar's diet. In South America, competition with the jaguar shifts the cougar toward smaller prey, with ungulates comprising only about 35% of the diet in some surveys. In Patagonia, Magellanic penguins constitute the majority of prey at certain national parks.
Fatal cougar attacks on humans are rare. Between 1890 and 1990 in North America, there were 53 confirmed attacks resulting in 10 human deaths; by 2004 that count had reached 88 attacks and 20 deaths. Attacks are most frequent during late spring and summer when juvenile cougars disperse from their mothers.
The cougar has been listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List since 2008. However, the eastern cougar population is considered mostly locally extinct in eastern North America since the early 20th century, with the exception of the Florida panther subpopulation, which is protected under the Endangered Species Act.
Grizzly and black bears visit a substantial portion of cougar kills in national parks, usurping carcasses and causing cougars to lose a significant share of their daily energy. Gray wolf packs can steal cougar kills and have been documented killing cougars, but one-on-one encounters tend to favor the cougar. Wolves also affect cougar distribution by dominating territory, with research in Yellowstone showing displacement of cougars from areas with wolf packs.