Cats in the United States the appearance of humans in the Americas. Some prehistoric animals referred to as "saber-toothed cats" were in fact marsupials and not cats at all, but called such because of their resemblance to true felines with large canine teeth. Two main species of big cat currently inhabit the United States. One is the jaguar ("Panthera onca"), which is related to many species of big cat found on other continents and can be found in the southwestern US and as far south as northern Argentina. The other, the cougar ("Puma concolor"), which is also known as the puma or mountain lion, is
Phantom cat on several occasions in a wildlife preserve, but the animal, nicknamed Winnie, was later identified as an unusually large crossbreed between a domestic and a wild cat. Since the late 1990s, big cat sightings have been reported in widely separated parts of New Zealand, in both the North and South Islands. There have been several unverified panther sightings in Mid-Canterbury near Ashburton and in the nearby foothills of the Southern Alps, but searches conducted there in 2003 by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry found no corroborating physical evidence. Phantom cat sightings in the United States should not be confused