Native:
Argentina; Belize; Bolivia; Brazil; Colombia; Costa Rica; Ecuador; French Guiana; Guatemala; Guyana; Honduras; Mexico; Nicaragua; Panama; Paraguay; Peru; Suriname; United States; Venezuela

Regionally extinct:
Chile, El Salvador; Uruguay

* The jaguar is the only member of the big cat family in the Americas

10,000

Near Threatened

• Is the largest cat in the Americas
• Jaguars are very similar in appearance to leopards but are larger, more muscular and have larger heads
• Both animals are short, stocky, muscular cats
• Both have a yellow / golden undercoat with black rosettes but the jaguars’ are larger and generally have a spot in the middle of the rosette (leopards generally do not)
• Rosettes change in size, shape and thickness from cat to cat
• Belly and neck of the cat are white
• The backs of the ears are black with a faint spot in the centre
• Some carry a recessive gene causing the production of too much melanin resulting in the cat looking black – this is referred to as a panther (a melanistic jaguar or leopard).  If the jaguar sits in the light, you will still be able to see it’s rosettes as the undercoat is a dark brown due to the melanin, and the rosettes are still black
• Their canine teeth are more robust and their bite is the most powerful of the big cats

Head and body length: 1.1 m – 1.7 m  
Tail length: 50 cm – 80 cm        
Weight: 35 kg - 120 kg

• Size differences due to geographic location can vary their size by 100%.  The smaller cats are generally from the forested areas where the larger cats are generally from the floodplain areas

Wild: Up to 12 years
Captivity: Up to 25 years

• An opportunistic predator that will eat pretty much any animal that presents it the opportunity
• Will eat things as small as reptiles, turtle eggs, fish, wild pigs (peccaries), right up to deer or domestic cattle weighing over 4 times the cats weight
• As they love the water, they do hunt turtles and crocodiles
• Ambush predator
• Kill their prey with a bite through the skull with their massive canine teeth – this is a technique unique to jaguars.  With some prey they also use the common neck or throat bite
• Will drag their larger prey into a protected area before eating
• May spend 2 – 3 days with a carcass and will not cover it if they leave
• Captive jaguars eat approximately 1.4 kgs of meat per day

• Typically found in tropical and sub-tropical locations
• Tropical rainforests
• Scrub
• Swampy grasslands
• Swamps
• Forests
• Love water so are often close to rivers and streams

• Solitary animal only coming together to mate, or a female with cubs
• Like most cats, males typically have a large territory that overlaps with a number of female territories
• Males will retain exclusive breeding rights to females in his territory as long as he can defend
• Depending on the amount of prey, territories vary from 90 km2 to 200 km2
• Communicate with each other using cheek rubbing on trees, faeces, urine and spray marking (urine with scent gland secretion) sprayed on rocks, trees, bushes etc. to mark territories
• Flehmen – allows olfactory & chemical clues to pass over naso-vomeral organ positioned in the roof of the mouth
• Visual marks are also left with scrape marks (scratching hind feet in the dirt) and scratch marks left on logs and trees
• Are best known for their guttural roar which has been likened to thunder

• Habitat destruction
• Poaching
• People hunting the jaguar’s prey source leaving limited prey for the cat
• Human conflicts over livestock
• Full CITES (Appendix I) protection