Random Random Notes

18 March 2017, Day 1

Vermont couldn't pull off the upset of Purdue.  The Boilermakers' Caleb Swanigan was a beast, scoring 16 to go along with 14 boards.  The best player I saw today.  Iowa State can’t stop him and, down the road, Kansas may not be able to either.  The Vermont mascot is the catamount.  What’s that, you ask?  Catamount refers to the large solitary cat Puma concolor, which has the most extensive range of any terrestrial mammal in the western hemisphere stretching from the Yukon in Canada all the way to southern Chile and Argentina.  The fact that this cat manages to live in such diverse places likely accounts for the fact that, according to the Guinness book of world records, it is the animal with the most names (over 40).  Where I come from they are called mountain lions; out west they are known as pumas; in the deep south they are called panthers.  In Vermont they are obviously known as catamounts.  This is a bit a of an odd choice for their school mascot considering that Puma concolor was eradicated east of the Mississippi in the late 19th century through deliberate hunting by farmers as well as dwindling habitat.  The exception is a small population of cats that persists in central Florida.  Likely due to their isolated habitat, the Florida strain of these cats has developed some unique behaviors.  For example, older females that may no longer be fertile still aggressively pursue and mate with post-adolescent males, which is the reason Orlando is known as cougar town.