Jaguar

All you need to know about the Jaguar

The jaguar (Panthera onca) is a large felid species and the only extant member of the genus Panthera native to the Americas.

The jaguar's present range extends from Southwestern United States and Mexico in North America, across much of Central America, and south to Paraguay and northern Argentina in South America.

Though there are single cats now living within the Western United States, the species has largely been extirpated from the United States since the early 20th century.

It is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List; and its numbers are declining. Threats include loss and fragmentation of habitat.

Overall, the jaguar is the largest native cat species of the New World and the third largest in the world. This spotted cat closely resembles the leopard, but is usually larger and sturdier.

It ranges across a variety of forested and open terrains, but its preferred habitat is tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forest, swamps and wooded regions.

The jaguar enjoys swimming and is largely a solitary, opportunistic, stalk-and-ambush predator at the top of the food chain.

As a keystone species it plays an important role in stabilizing ecosystems and regulating prey populations.

While international trade in jaguars or their body parts is prohibited, the cat is still frequently killed, particularly in conflicts with ranchers and farmers in South America.

Although reduced, its range remains large. Given its historical distribution, the jaguar has featured prominently in the mythology of numerous indigenous American cultures, including those of the Maya and Aztec.

Jaguar Documentary Film

Evolution

The genus Panthera probably evolved in Asia between six and ten million years ago.

The jaguar is thought to have diverged from a common ancestor of the Panthera at least 1.5 million years ago and to have entered the American continent in the Early Pleistocene via Beringia, the land bridge that once spanned the Bering Strait.

Results of jaguar mitochondrial DNA analysis indicate that the species' lineage evolved between 280,000 and 510,000 years ago.

Its immediate ancestor was Panthera onca augusta, which was larger than the contemporary jaguar. Phylogenetic studies generally have shown the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) is basal to this group.

Fossils of extinct Panthera species, such as the European jaguar (P. gombaszoegensis) and the American lion (P. atrox), show characteristics of both the jaguar and the lion (P. leo).

Based on morphological evidence, the British zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock concluded that the jaguar is most closely related to the leopard (P. pardus).

However, DNA-based evidence is inconclusive, and the position of the jaguar relative to the other species varies between studies.

Color Variation

Melanistic jaguars are informally known as black panthers, but as with all forms of polymorphism they do not form a separate species.

The black morph is less common than the spotted morph, estimated at occurring in about 6% of the South American jaguar population.

In Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental, the first black jaguar was recorded in 2004.

Some evidence indicates that the melanistic allele is dominant, and being supported by natural selection.

The black form may be an example of heterozygote advantage; breeding in captivity is not yet conclusive on this. Melanistic jaguars (or "black" jaguars) occur primarily in parts of South America, and are virtually unknown in wild populations residing in the subtropical and temperate regions of North America; they have rarely been documented north of Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

Extremely rare albino individuals, sometimes called white panthers, also occur among jaguars, as with the other big cats.

As usual with albinos in the wild, selection keeps the frequency close to the rate of mutation.

Distribution and Habitat

At present, the jaguar's range extends from Mexico through Central America to South America, including much of Amazonian Brazil. The countries included in this range are Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica (particularly on the Osa Peninsula), Ecuador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, the United States and Venezuela. It is now locally extinct in El Salvador and Uruguay.

It occurs in the 400 km² Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary in Belize, the 5,300 km² Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, the approximately 15,000 km2 Manú National Park in Peru, the approximately 26,000 km2 Xingu National Park in Brazil, and numerous other reserves throughout its range.

The inclusion of the United States in the list is based on occasional sightings in the southwest, particularly in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

There are rock drawings made by the Hopi, Anasazi, and Pueblo all over the desert and chaparral regions of the American Southwest of an explicitly spotted cat: the only other feline that could even come close to such a profile would be the ocelot, but the pictographs distinctly display a much larger beast more than twice as large as any known ocelot.

There are records of the beast being sold for its pelt in the vicinity of San Antonio, Texas for $18 apiece in the mid 19th century and there are records from well before California was a state that fit the description of this cat perfectly, mostly written down in Spanish.

The jaguar appears in the fossil record in ample abundance well north of the border with Mexico and, combined with the pictographs of Native Tribes, the evidence is very clear that long before European settlement, the cat lived on both side of the Rio Grande for thousands of years.

In the early 20th century, the jaguar's range extended as far north as the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona, possibly east into Colorado, as far west as Monterey in California, and the Texas/Louisiana border, The jaguar is a protected species in the United States under the Endangered Species Act, which has stopped the shooting of the animal for its pelt or any other reason whatsoever.

Jaguar skins are also treated as illegal contraband by the US government and generally speaking the law, federal and state, is very much against international trafficking of any endangered species or its parts with punishments being severe, up to and including a very long prison sentence Further, by and large Americans have stopped wearing fur coats made of the pelts of endangered creatures as citizens are aware of the international plight of big cats .

Unfortunately the cessation of hunting came too late to save the jaguar population from crashing and no kittens have been known to have been born on the other side of the Mexican-American border in generations.

In 1996 and from 2004 on, hunting guides and wildlife officials in Arizona photographed and documented jaguars in the southern part of the state.

Between 2004 and 2007, two or three jaguars have been reported by researchers around Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in southern Arizona. One of them, called 'Macho B', had been previously photographed in 1996 in the area.

For any permanent population in the US to thrive, protection from killing, an adequate prey base, and connectivity with Mexican populations are essential.

In February 2009, a 53.5 kg (118 lb) jaguar was caught, radio-collared and released in an area southwest of Tucson, Arizona; this is farther north than had previously been expected and represents a sign there may be a permanent breeding population of jaguars within southern Arizona.

The animal was later confirmed to be indeed the same male individual ('Macho B') that was photographed in 2004.

On 2 March 2009, Macho B was recaptured and euthanized after he was found to be suffering from kidney failure; the animal was thought to be 16 years old, older than any known wild jaguar.

It is feared that completion of a United States–Mexico barrier may reduce the viability of any population currently residing in the United States, by reducing gene flow with Mexican populations, and may prevent any further northward expansion for the species.

The historic range of the species included much of the southern half of the United States, and in the south extended much farther to cover most of the South American continent.

In total, its northern range has receded 1,000 km (620 mi) southward and its southern range 2,000 km (1,200 mi) northward. Ice age fossils of the jaguar, dated between 40,000 and 11,500 years ago, have been discovered in the United States, including some at an important site as far north as Missouri.

Fossil evidence shows jaguars of up to 190 kg (420 lb), much larger than the contemporary average for the animal.

It is a mistake and misconception to believe that this large Panthera species is chiefly a jungle cat that never leaves the Amazon: it actually is perfectly capable and willing to make its home in a greater variety of environments.

The habitat of the cat typically includes the rain forests and cloud forests of South and Central America, open, seasonally flooded wetlands, and dry grassland terrain.

Of these habitats, the jaguar much prefers dense forest; the cat has lost range most rapidly in regions of drier habitat, such as the Argentine pampas, the arid grasslands of Mexico, and the southwestern United States.

The cat will range across tropical, subtropical, and dry deciduous forests (including, historically, oak forests in the United States).

The jaguar prefers to live by rivers, swamps, and in dense rainforest with thick cover for stalking prey. Jaguars have been found at elevations as high as 3,800 m, but they typically avoid montane forest and are not found in the high plateau of central Mexico or in the Andes.

The jaguars preferred habitats are usually swamps and wooded regions, but jaguars also live in scrublands and deserts.

Behaviour and Ecology

The adult jaguar is an apex predator, meaning it exists at the top of its food chain and is not preyed on in the wild.

The jaguar has also been termed a keystone species, as it is assumed, through controlling the population levels of prey such as herbivorous and granivorous mammals, apex felids maintain the structural integrity of forest systems.

However, accurately determining what effect species like the jaguar have on ecosystems is difficult, because data must be compared from regions where the species is absent as well as its current habitats, while controlling for the effects of human activity.

It is accepted that mid-sized prey species undergo population increases in the absence of the keystone predators, and this has been hypothesized to have cascading negative effects.

However, field work has shown this may be natural variability and the population increases may not be sustained. Thus, the keystone predator hypothesis is not accepted by all scientists.

The jaguar also has an effect on other predators.

The jaguar and the cougar, which is the next-largest feline of South America, but the biggest in Central or North America, are often sympatric (related species sharing overlapping territory) and have often been studied in conjunction.

The jaguar tends to take larger prey, usually over 22 kg (49 lb) and the cougar smaller, usually between 2 and 22 kg (4.4 and 48.5 lb), reducing the latter's size.

This situation may be advantageous to the cougar.

Its broader prey niche, including its ability to take smaller prey, may give it an advantage over the jaguar in human-altered landscapes while both are classified as near-threatened species, the cougar has a significantly larger current distribution. Depending on the availability of prey, the cougar and jaguar may even share it.

Hunting and Diet

Like all cats, the jaguar is an obligate carnivore, feeding only on meat. It is an opportunistic hunter and its diet encompasses at least 87 species.

Range-wide, jaguars prefer prey weighing 45–85 kg (99–187 lb) and the most significantly preferred species are capybara and giant anteater.

Other commonly taken prey include wild boar, common caiman, collared peccary, deer in more northern parts of their range, frogs, fish, nine-banded armadillo and white-nosed coati. Other species like the agouti, other carnivorans, primates, common opossum and tapir are generally avoided.

Jagaurs are unusual among large felids in that they do not have a special preference for even-toed ungulates.

Some jaguars also prey on livestock and they will actively target horses, cattle, and llamas. The activity patterns of the jaguar have been found to coincide with the activity of their main prey species in their biomes.

Camera trap studies have shown that jaguars primarily have a crepuscular–nocturnal activity pattern in all the biomes that they are found in; however jaguars have been recorded to have considerable diurnal activity in thickly forested regions of the Amazon Rainforest and the Pantanal, as well as purely nocturnal activity in other regions such as the Atlantic forest.

While the jaguar often employs the deep throat-bite and suffocation technique typical among Panthera, it sometimes uses a killing method unique among cats: it pierces directly through the temporal bones of the skull between the ears of prey (especially the capybara) with its canine teeth, piercing the brain.

This may be an adaptation to "cracking open" turtle shells; following the late Pleistocene extinctions, armored reptiles such as turtles would have formed an abundant prey base for the jaguar.

The skull bite is employed with mammals in particular; with reptiles such as the caiman, the jaguar may leap onto the back of the prey and sever the cervical vertebrae, immobilizing the target. When attacking sea turtles, including the huge leatherback sea turtle which weighs about 385 kg (849 lb) on average, as they try to nest on beaches, the jaguar will bite at the head, often beheading the prey, before dragging it off to eat.

Reportedly, while hunting horses, a jaguar may leap onto their back, place one paw on the muzzle and another on the nape and then twist, dislocating the neck. Local people have anecdotally reported that when hunting a pair of horses bound together, the jaguar will kill one horse and then drag it while the other horse, still living, is dragged in their wake.

The jaguar is a stalk-and-ambush rather than a chase predator.

The cat will walk slowly down forest paths, listening for and stalking prey before rushing or ambushing.

The jaguar attacks from cover and usually from a target's blind spot with a quick pounce; the species' ambushing abilities are considered nearly peerless in the animal kingdom by both indigenous people and field researchers, and are probably a product of its role as an apex predator in several different environments.

The ambush may include leaping into water after prey, as a jaguar is quite capable of carrying a large kill while swimming; its strength is such that carcasses as large as a heifer can be hauled up a tree to avoid flood levels.

On killing prey, the jaguar will drag the carcass to a thicket or other secluded spot. It begins eating at the neck and chest, rather than the midsection.

The heart and lungs are consumed, followed by the shoulders.

The daily food requirement of a 34 kg (75 lb) animal, at the extreme low end of the species' weight range, has been estimated at 1.4 kg (3.1 lb).

For captive animals in the 50–60 kg (110–130 lb) range, more than 2 kg (4.4 lb) of meat daily are recommended.

In the wild, consumption is naturally more erratic; wild cats expend considerable energy in the capture and kill of prey, and they may consume up to 25 kg (55 lb) of meat at one feeding, followed by periods of famine.

Though carnivorous, there is evidence that wild jaguars consume the roots of Banisteriopsis caapi.

Reproduce and life cycle

Jaguar females reach sexual maturity at about two years of age, and males at three or four.

The cat probably mates throughout the year in the wild, with births increasing when prey is plentiful. Research on captive male jaguars supports the year-round mating hypothesis, with no seasonal variation in semen traits and ejaculatory quality; low reproductive success has also been observed in captivity.

Generation length of the jaguar is 9.8 years.

Female estrus is 6–17 days out of a full 37-day cycle, and females will advertise fertility with urinary scent marks and increased vocalization.

Females range more widely than usual during courtship.

Pairs separate after mating, and females provide all parenting. The gestation period lasts 93–105 days; females give birth to up to four cubs, and most commonly to two.

The mother will not tolerate the presence of males after the birth of cubs, given a risk of infanticide; this behavior is also found in the tiger.

The young are born blind, gaining sight after two weeks.

Cubs are weaned at three months, but remain in the birth den for six months before leaving to accompany their mother on hunts.

They will continue in their mother's company for one to two years before leaving to establish a territory for themselves.

Young males are at first nomadic, jostling with their older counterparts until they succeed in claiming a territory.

Typical lifespan in the wild is estimated at around 12–15 years; in captivity, the jaguar lives up to 23 years, placing it among the longest-lived cats.