THE JAGUAR
G'day folks,
Welcome to some facts about a beautiful animal. The jaguar is a big cat, a feline in the Panthera genus, and is
the only extant Panthera species native to the Americas. The jaguar is
the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and the largest
in the Americas.
The jaguar is the largest
cat in the Americas. It has a compact body, a broad head and powerful
jaws. Its coat is normally yellow and tan, but the colour can vary from reddish
brown to black. The spots on the coat are more solid and black on the head and
neck and become larger rosette-shaped patterns along the side and back of the
body.
As
a top-level carnivore, the big cat helps prevent overgrazing of vegetation by
keeping its prey populations in balance. Jaguars are also important in human
culture, frequently playing a central role in stories, songs and prayers of
indigenous people. Yet today, jaguars have been almost completely eliminated
from the United States.
Diet
Jaguars
are known to eat deer, peccary, crocodiles, snakes, monkeys, deer, sloths,
tapirs, turtles, eggs, frogs, fish and anything else they can catch.
Population
At best,
only an estimated 15,000 jaguars remain in the wild. Bi-national conservation
efforts have been successful at protecting a small population of 80 to 120 cats
in the remote mountains of Sonora, Mexico bordering Arizona. This
population is the largest of three known to remain in Sonora, and is the last
hope for recovery in the United States.
Range & Habitat
The mighty
jaguar once roamed from Argentina in South America all the way up to the Grand
Canyon in Arizona. Today, jaguars have been almost completely eliminated from
the United States and are endangered throughout their range, which stretches
down to Patagonia in South America. The jaguar makes its home in a wide-variety
of habitats including deciduous forests, rainforests, swamps, pampas grasslands
and mountain scrub areas.
Behavior
Jaguars
are solitary animals and live and hunt alone, except during mating season. The
male's home range is between 19 and 53 square miles and often overlaps with the
smaller home ranges of multiple females. A male aggressively protects his home
range and resident females from other males.
The
jaguar hunts mostly on the ground, but it sometimes climbs a tree and pounces
on its prey from above. It has very powerful jaws and sharp teeth and usually
kills its prey with one crushing bite to the skull. Unlike most big cats, the
jaguar loves the water — it often swims, bathes, plays and even hunts for fish
in streams and pools. Like all members of the big cat family, jaguars can roar.
The jaguar’s roar sounds like a deep, chesty cough.
Clancy's comment: Beautiful and sleek animal.
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