Range and Habitat-

    The jaguars current range extends from the very southern United States all the way down to  northern Argentina. It does not include all of the countries in between their habitat is heavily fragmented and full of narrow corridors used frequently by current populations of jaguars.  Many populations are isolated from each other by human development or natural barriers such as the Amazon river. 

     The jaguar lives in a variety of habitats including, woodland, dense rainforest, scrubland and the flooded plains of Brazil and Paraguay.  They tend to avoid high elevations and are not found in montane regions.  The favored habitat is the dense tropical rainforest.  No matter what habitat you find them in they will always be near water, usually a river.  Like its cousin, the tiger, the jaguar likes to swim and will readily jump into the water.

Size and Appearance-

    The jaguar is the largest cat in the western hemisphere and the third largest cat in the world.  They are compact and very muscular, they range in size from 125-160 kgs.  Jaguars can be 5-6 ft long plus up to 30” with the tail, they stand 27-30” at the shoulder.  Females tend to be 10-20% smaller than males.  The size of the jaguar actually varies from region to region with size increasing from north to south.  Forest jaguars are usually smaller and darker than jaguars from populations living in more open areas.

    Jaguars have a yellow base coat to their fur, with the distinct black rosettes covering most of the body.  This seemingly loud color pattern actually works as a great camouflage in the dense undergrowth of the rainforest.  The complicated pattern breaks up the outline of the cat and makes it difficult to see amongst the shadows and broken light of the rainforest floor.  A peculiar genetic color variation in jaguar populations is melanism. People usually refer to them as “black panthers” they are actually black jaguars.  It is a simple recessive mutation and is still very rare in the wild.

Diet-

    Like all cats the jaguar is an obligate carnivore, which means it cannot eat anything but meat.  The jaguar is an apex predator and a keystone species this means it controls the balance of the ecosystem in which it occupies.  If you remove the jaguar the entire ecosystem would collapse and fall off balance.  The Jaguar eats 87 different species of mammal, bird, reptile and amphibian.  It prefers larger prey but is opportunistic and will take what it can get.

   The jaguar is a sit and wait predator and prefers to pounce from under cover usually in the animals blind spot. Most large cats kill with a crushing bite to the throat.  The jaguar is different, it prefers to bite the skull between the temporal bones thus piercing the brain.  This may be due to the sheer strength of the jaguars bite.  It is ranked as having the strongest bite of any large cat, after body size is adjusted for.  An adult jaguar can drag an 800 lb bull 25 feet in its mouth and has no problem pulverizing bones.

Behavior and breeding-

    Like most large cats the jaguar is solitary for most of its life.  Jaguars each have a fairly large range, females usually patrol areas from 25-40 square kms.  Males have larger territories ranging in size from 50-90 square kms.  They tend to avoid each other and borders are marked with scratch marks, urine scent and feces. 

    Breeding is believed to happen year round  with births increasing when prey is plentiful.   Pairs will come together to court and breed and then separate.  Gestation lasts for 90-100 days with up to four cubs being born, however, usually two are born.  After giving birth the female will not tolerate males in her territory due to the risk of infant cannabalism, which also happens in lions and tigers.  Cubs are weaned at 3 months but will remain under cover for up to 6 months before following mother on hunts.  They will stay with the female for 1-2 years. 

    Jaguars are a fairly active compared to other large cats, they will spend 50-60% of its day actively roaming its territory.  Typically jaguars are crepuscular and are most active during dusk and dawn hours.

Conservation status-

    You can track the decline in jaguar numbers as far back as the late 1960‘s when the jaguar fur trade was rampant.  It wasn’t until the 1970‘s that the Convention for the International Trade of Endangered Species or CITES made the trade in jaguars illegal. 

    Rainforest development is probably the largest concern to jaguar survival today.  All of the countries that the jaguar is from are developing countries with high poverty rates so the ease of exploiting the forest is hard to resist.  Illegal logging leads to fragmentation of jaguar habitat, this is critical to a species which requires large areas of land to survive.  The next biggest threat to jaguar survival is rancher shooting.  Once the forest “opened up” from logging many people claimed land and started farms.  This lead to the hunting of the white lipped peccary a primary food source of the jaguar.  With reduced prey numbers the jaguar resorts to killing livestock out of convenience.  In some places the jaguar is considered a pest and shot on site with no repercussion.  Poaching is also still a threat to this large cat and the black market for jaguar pelts is still prevalent.  The trade in “wild” pets is also very popular and many cubs are taken after the mother is shot.   

    This animal is a keystone species and is critical for the survival of the entire rainforest ecosystem, we must do more to educate people on the value of this animal rather than the value of its hide.

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