Pregnancy lasts for 91-111 days, and either one or two cubs will be born in a ‘birth den’. They are what is known as ‘induced ovulators’, which means they ovulate due to genital stimulation either just before or during mating, but they may also ovulate spontaneously, ie according to a menstrual cycle like that of humans. The female jaguar’s estrous cycle lasts from 41.8 to 52.6 days.įemales remain in heat for 7-15 days, during which time they are more restless and tend to make long calls.

Jaguars in the Pantanal kill prey at unpredictable intervals, ranging from 1-7 days in the dry season from April to September and 1-16 days during the wet season from October to March.īased on specimens in captivity, the jaguar appears to need around 1.4 kg (3.1 lb) of meat every day to survive.įemale jaguars reach sexual maturity at 2.5 years whereas males have to wait until they are three or four years old. They typically hide their kill in a thicket or up a tree and then eat it later at their leisure, starting with the neck and chest, then followed by the heart, lungs and shoulders. This is the same with most mammals such as the capybara, but their method of killing large mammals such as the South American tapir is different, and they adopt the lion’s strategy of biting the throat and then suffocating the animal to death. In the Pantanal, the jaguar preys on caiman by walking along the high riverbank and then jumping down on top of them and killing them with a bite to the back of the neck. It is particularly gifted at stalking and ambushing its prey, either on forest tracks or along the banks of a river. The jaguar prefers mammals such as capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) and giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla) as well as marsh deer (Blastocerus dichotomus), southern tamandua (Tamandua tetradactyla), collared peccary (Pecari tajacu) and black agouti (Dasyprocta fuliginosa). It will eat animals of any size, ranging from 1 to 130 kg (2.2 to 286.6 lb), but it prefers prey weighing 45–85 kg (99–187 lb). The jaguar is an apex predator and ‘obligate’ carnivore (or ‘hypercarnivore’), which means it relies entirely on meat consumption to survive. It has been found at altitudes up to 3,800 m (12,500 ft) but not in montane forests. The jaguar prefers forests and riverine environments such as swamps and floodplains, particularly with dense undergrowth. Habitat: Forest, Savanna, Shrubland, Grassland, Wetlands (inland), Artificial/Terrestrialĭistribution: Mexico, Central and South America Habitat Lifespan: 11 years (up to a maximum of 22 years in captivity) The melanistic jaguar or black panther is completely black due to the effects of a recessive gene. Males are generally 10-20% bigger than females. The ‘rosettes’ on the animal’s flanks have a ring of spots with one in the middle. Length of head and body: 1.12 to 1.85 m (3 ft 8 in to 6 ft 1 in)Īppearance: Big cat with a brown coat and black spots. Height at shoulder: 68 to 75 cm (26.8 to 29.5 in) When he finally succeeded, after two exhausting attempts, everyone watching on the boats gave him a big round of applause! Basic facts Jaguars tend to hide their prey rather than eating it at once, so we watched as Marley desperately tried to drag an enormous caiman up the steep 10-foot river bank through a tangle of undergrowth. He'd grabbed the caiman by the throat instead, and it was still alive.Ī lion would have suffocated it, but Marley was a jaguar, so he somehow had to change his grip to kill it, and that took him about 10 minutes of dithering about.

Jaguars generally kill caiman by biting them on the back of the head, but this particular jaguar (Marley) was only two years old and didn't really know what he was doing. The highlight of the whole adventure was seeing a jaguar kill a local crocodile called a caiman (see Hunting section below). I went on boat trips every day, and the jaguars were mostly found lying on the high mud banks of the Cuiabá and Piquiri rivers. The best place to see it is in the Pantanal region of Brazil, and I had 16 sightings when I went there in September 2016.Įach individual jaguar is given a reference number and name, and the local rule is that if you spot one that hasn’t been seen before, then you get to pick the name.Īs a result, the jaguars I saw were called Geoff, Estela, Peter Schmidt, Marley, Mick Jaguar and Ruth! The jaguar is the largest cat in the Americas and the third-largest in the world after the tiger and lion.

Predator vs prey gifted lesson