1 South america
2jungles,leafy surrounds and trees
3stealth predator/agile can jump 40ft/
3 comes into sexual maturity aged 2 thereabouts
3carnivore eats varied mammalian in its habitat range
3large spots,males bigger than females ,
3solitary cat aggressive large felidae
4 deforestation has forced many out of natural jungle habitat and into encroachment into human settlements.
3 Many conservation projects in place to try protect it.
** I Have been lucky enough for a couple of years to fuss and often play with the very beautiful and vocal, and very charismatic ATHENA a lovely young playful female jaguar from the registered rare leopard charity "THE CAT SURVIVAL TRUST" based in Codicote Welwyn Hertfordshire here in the UK(www.catsurvivaltrust.org)....Her dad is Sovereign from DARTMOOR SAFARI PARK.
The jaguar, Panthera onca, is a New World feline and one of four "big cats" in the Panthera genus, along with the tiger, lion, and leopard of the Old World. It is the only Panthera found in the New World. The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and on average the largest and most powerful feline in the Western Hemisphere. The jaguar's present range extends from Mexico across much of Central America and south to Paraguay and northern Argentina. Other than occasional visits from wandering jaguars from Mexico, the cat has largely been extirpated from the United States since the early 1970s.
This spotted cat most closely resembles the leopard physically, although it is usually larger and of sturdier build and its behavioural and habitat characteristics are closer to those of the tiger. While dense rainforest is its preferred habitat, the jaguar will range across a variety of forested and open terrain. It is strongly associated with the presence of water and is notable, along with the tiger, as a feline that enjoys swimming. The jaguar is a largely solitary, stalk-and-ambush predator, and is opportunistic in prey selection. It is also an apex and keystone predator, playing an important role in stabilizing ecosystems and regulating the populations of prey species. The jaguar has developed an exceptionally powerful bite, even relative to the other big cats. This allows it to pierce the shells of armoured reptiles and to employ an unusual killing method: it bites directly through the skull of prey between the ears to deliver a fatal blow to the brain.
The jaguar is a near threatened species and its numbers are declining. Threats include habitat loss and fragmentation. While international trade in jaguars or their parts is prohibited, the cat is still regularly killed by humans, particularly in conflicts with ranchers and farmers in South America. Although reduced, its range remains large; given its historical distribution, the jaguar has featured prominently in the mythology of numerous indigenous American cultures, including that of the Maya and Aztec.
Like all cats, the jaguar is an obligate carnivore, feeding only on meat. It is an opportunistic hunter and its diet encompasses 87 species.The jaguar prefers large prey and will take deer, capybara, tapirs, peccaries, dogs, foxes, and sometimes even anacondas and caiman. However, the cat will eat any small species that can be caught, including frogs, mice, birds, fish, sloths, monkeys, turtles, and they may also hunt domestic livestock, including adult cattle and horses.
The adult jaguar is an apex predator, meaning that it exists at the top of its food chain and is not preyed on in the wild. The jaguar has also been termed a keystone species, as it is assumed, through controlling the population levels of prey such as herbivorous and granivorous mammals, apex felids maintain the structural integrity of forest systems. However, accurately determining what effect species like the jaguar have on ecosystems is difficult, because data must be compared from regions where the species is absent as well as its current habitats, while controlling for the effects of human activity. It is accepted that mid-sized prey species undergo population increases in the absence of the keystone predators and it has been hypothesized that this has cascading negative effects.However, field work has shown this may be natural variability and that the population increases may not be sustained. Thus, the keystone predator hypothesis is not favoured by all scientists.