The largest cat in the Western Hemisphere. Jaguars, Panthera onca, are the third largest cat in the feline family after tigers and lions. There are eight subspecies of jaguar and all are endangered. The largest cat and top terrestrial predator in the Americas, jaguars usually reach a size of 100 to 200 pounds by adulthood. Farther south, male jaguars have been recorded at more than 300 pounds and 8 feet from nose to tail tip. Found only in the New World, jaguars are broad in their use of habitat, primarily living in deciduous tropical rain forests, but also in grassland and dry habitat types."El tigre," as the jaguar is called in Spanish, is largely solitary except for mating and the one and a half to two years that a mother and her cubs stay together.
Power, stealth and claws. Except for humans, the jaguar has no other rivals; no other predator can overpower this powerful cat in its natural range. Unlike most cats, which kill by grabbing the prey's throat and suffocating it, the jaguar usually kills its prey by piercing the skull or neck with one swift bite. Short muscular limbs make the jaguar perfectly adapted to capturing prey such as deer, peccaries, monkeys, tapirs, and an assortment of smaller animals including birds, turtles and fish. While the jaguar does most of its stalking on the ground, it is an excellent climber, leaping from a tree or ledge to ambush prey. It also has expert fishing skills and, where possible, will inhabit areas close to water where it can swat at and spear fish with its sharp claws. The jaguar is one of the few cats that regularly go into the water.
A spiritual and cultural symbol. For thousands of years, jaguars have symbolized the power of the forest and nature for the native people in its range from the Mayans, Incas and Aztecs to the Guaran' Indians of the Gran Chaco. The very word jaguar is derived from a language spoken in the heart of Amazonia. The Guaran' word "yaguara - means - the animal that kills with one leap." The Maya believed that the secretive cats were the rulers of the underworld while the Aztec formed jaguar societies, such as the jaguar knights, who represented the elite warrior class. Their human sacrifices often ended with the victims' hearts fed to a captive jaguar.
Yesterday's reverence - today's conflict. The species' range has shrunk by two-thirds in Mexico and Central America and more than a third in South America. Once ranging as far north as southern New Mexico and Arizona, and as far south as central Argentina, this range has shrunk to mere patches in Mexico and Central America. As human-imposed activities continue; habitat conversion (deforestation, agriculture, cattle ranching), human hunting of jaguar prey and human settlement; the future of jaguars, like that of major carnivores in general, share the same questionable fate of survival. Today, the largest contiguous area of jaguar range is centered in the Amazon Basin and includes adjoining areas in the Cerrado, Pantanal, and Chaco to the south and extending to the Caribbean coast in Venezuela and the Guianas. Protecting a top predator like the jaguar also means protecting its entire food chain and its habitat of tropical rain forest. Habitat loss is of great concern because it represents the loss of the greatest concentration of biological diversity on earth. The hope for rallying support behind the jaguar, a "flagship species," lies in long-term effective strategies that balance the needs of the local communities and those of the jaguar.