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| Jaguar Temporal range: Middle Pleistocene – Recent | |
|---|---|
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| A jaguar | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Suborder: | Feliformia |
| Family: | Felidae |
| Subfamily: | Pantherinae |
| Genus: | Panthera |
| Species: | P. onca |
| Binomial name | |
| Panthera onca | |
The jaguar (Panthera onca) is a big cat (feline) of the genus Panthera. It lives in South and Central America.
The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion. It is also the largest and most powerful feline in the Western Hemisphere.
Because of its spots, jaguars look like leopards, though it is usually larger and stronger, and its behavior is more like that of a tiger. It likes to stay near water, and like the tiger, it is famous for being a big cat that enjoys swimming. It usually hunts alone.
The jaguar has a very powerful strong bite, even compared to other big cats.[1] Because of its strong bite, jaguars can bite capybaras, Brazilian tapir, peccaries, giant anteaters, tamanduas, through armoured reptiles like caimans, crocodiles, turtles and tortoises.[2] Jaguars kill their prey in an unusual way: they bite directly through the skull between the ears and into the brain.[3]
Appearance
[change | change source]Jaguars have yellow or sometimes yellow-orange fur with brown and black rosettes and spots. They are big and heavy and also have very strong muscles which makes them really powerful. They cannot climb well, but they can swim.
Sometimes there are jaguars who are completely black, but if you look closely you can still see the spots. They are called "black panther" or just "panther". This is a 'colour morph' of the same species, a kind of polymorphism.
Habitat
[change | change source]Jaguars live in South America and Central America. They mostly live in rainforests, but also in savannas, swamps, grasslands, forest, deserts and open areas.
Life
[change | change source]Jaguars are not specialized with their food, but eat almost anything they get: big and small mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and livestock. It is an ambush predator. When hunting, they usually try to secretly get very close to the prey, and then the jaguar suddenly jumps at it and throws it down. The jaguar bites the skull of its prey to kill it. It then takes the prey to a safe place and eats it.
After a pregnancy of about 100 days the female gives birth to usually 1 - 4 babies. The young leave their family after 1–2 years, and they become mature at about 3 years. Jaguars can live up to 10–12 years old in freedom, but in captivity (such as in zoos) they can live to 20–22 years old.
References
[change | change source]- ↑ Stephen Wroe, Colin McHenry, and Jeffrey Thomason (2006). "Bite club: comparative bite force in big biting mammals and the prediction of predatory behavior in fossil taxa" (PDF). Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 272 (1563). Royal Society: 619–625. doi:10.1098/rspb.2004.2986. PMC 1564077. PMID 15817436. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 21, 2006. Retrieved 2006-08-07.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ Hamdig, Paul. "Sympatric Jaguar and Puma". Archived from the original on 2008-02-01. Retrieved 2009-03-19.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - ↑ Rosa CL de la and Nocke, 2000. A guide to the carnivores of Central America: natural history, ecology, and conservation. The University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-71604-9
Other websites
[change | change source]
- BBC videos on Jaguars Archived 2010-11-06 at the Wayback Machine