The size of this cat is frequently overestimated. For example, a so-called recordholder was killed in 1958 in Paraguay. This giant puma weighed 170 kg. It was reported in the Sports Afield Hunting Annual. The record is unlikely to be accurate. A more likely recordholder concerns a puma killed in Arizona in 1917 by a hunter. The cat’s weight was certified as 125 kg without its intestines by the US Biological Survey.
A notable feature of this well-known wild cat is that its weight varies considerably over its vast area of distribution. In Chile, the southern limits of its distribution, and in Canada, the northern limits, pumas weigh around twice as much as those in the tropics.
Records of adult male pumas from Peru, in equatorial rainforests, have been recorded as weighing only 28 to 30 kg. Adult males from Canada and Chile weigh 65 to 85 kg.
Further, male, adult pumas weigh from 40 to 60% more than females. Here are some weights by location.
In Canada, a sample size of 12 males averaged 71 kg. Another sample size of 36 females had an average weight of 44 kg. In Colorado, USA the average weight of eight males was 61.6 kg. The average weight of 14 females in Colorado was 44.5 kg. In New Mexico the average weight of 10 males was 58.9 kg, whereas 11 females averaged 30.7 kg.
In Florida the average weight of 43 males was 53.6 kg, whereas the average weight of 37 females was 36.1 kg. In Brazil the average weight of 7 males was 53.1 kg and the average weight of 10 females was 36.9 kg.
Finally, in Chile the average weight of four females was 45.1 kg and for six males the average was 68.8 kg. I hope this answers the question in the title. See wild cat species by size.
Conversion: 1 kg = 2.2 lbs.
Sources: various as referred to in Wild Cats of the World.
