General Information
The jaguar is the third largest of the world’s cats, and the biggest and most powerful cat in the Americas. Jaguars are known as "el tigre" throughout most of South America, and "onca" in Brazil. The name jaguar is derived from "yaguara", a word from an indigenous South American language that means “wild beast that overcomes its prey with a single bound.”
Physical Description
The jaugar has a strong, stocky body, deep chest, and short, sturdy legs that make them appear larger than they really are. Jaguars have massive, almost oversized heads with ears that are short and rounded. There is also a faint spot on the back of eah ear. Physically, jaguars and leopards look quite similar, but when compared side-by-side, the jaguar appears heavier and more powerful looking, with a much larger head than the leopard.
Jaguars vary tremendously in size and males are usually 20 to 30 percent larger than females. The largest jaguars are found in Brazil and Venezuela, where males average 224 lbs and females average 158 lbs. In Central America and southern Mexico they are about half this size. In this area, males average 123 lb and females about 90 lb - not much heavier than a large dog.
The jaguar’s tawny yellow fur is patterend with dark rosettes. The largest rosettes can resemble paw prints, and may have one or two black dots in the center. Smaller solid spots dot the head, neck, and legs, and the tail is marked with black spots that merge to form bands near the tip. The background coat color and markings vary greatly from cat to cat. Just as with human fingerprints, individual jaguars can be identified by their markings. All-black jaguars are very common, especially in South America, where roughly 1 in 16 jaguars is black. In these individuals the spot pattern is usually visible beneath the dark coat color.
Diet
The jaguar's diet depends heavily upon where it lives. In the flooded grasslands of Brazil and Venezuela, jaguars feed on capybara, caiman, turtles, peccary, deer, fish, and cattle. In the lowland tropical rain forest of Peru, they hunt anteaters, monkeys, and agouti. They have an unusual method of killing just about any type of prey they encounter. Lions, tigers, and leopards kill large prey by biting the skull between the ears, but jaguars are the only cat that actually has teeth that are capable of biting through the shells of reptiles.
Habitat
Today the jaguar ranges from Mexico through much of South America, including Colombia, Venezuela, Suriname, Brazil, Peru, Paraguay, and northern Argentina. Until recently, jaguars also survived further north in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas. Two of the last remaining jaguars in North America were shot in the 1940's, however, there have been two photographed in different parts of Arizona.
Reproduction
Female jaguars are able to breed when they are about 2 years old. In the wild, males have to compete for females, the largest and strongest male dominates the breeding. Cubs weigh about 2 pounds when they are born and their eyes will open after 3 to 13 days. Young jaguars begin to eat meat when they are around 10 to 11 weeks old. When the cubs grow to be about one or two, they are able to hunt for themselves. Females will stay within their mother's home range to settle while males will travel a long ways before they find a new home.
