Known alternately as the puma, mountain lion, or panther, the cougar covers a territory on this continent almost as far-ranging as humans. Previous literature has implied, in a carefully crafted but thinly veiled manner, that the cougar presents little threat to human life, and that a person should more fear the possibility of being struck by "a piano falling from the sky." Documentation on cougar attacks has been sketchy, thus lending credence to the false notion of the cougar as a timid and cowardly species, one that flees at the mere suggestion of possible human contact.