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Life Span:
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Jaguars have lived up to 23 years in captivity. Their lifespan is much less in the wild.
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Size:
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The jaguar is a large, heavy-bodied, big-headed cat. Despite their stocky build and great physical strength,
they may be smaller than other, less powerful cats, such as the leopard. Jaguars are more heavily built than
leopards, with more muscles on their bodies and wider faces. On average, jaguars weigh twice as much as
leopards. Because they are stockier and more hardily built, jaguars are not as graceful as leopards.
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Color:
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The background of the jaguar's coat is a yellowish to tawny, like many of the Asiatic leopards, and
lightened to whitish on the throat and belly. The jaguar is marked with small isolated spots on the
head and neck with dark open ring structures, rosettes, in horizontal rows along the back and on the
sides and flank that generally contain one to four dark spots inside the rings.
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Physical Description:
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Jaguars (Panthera onca) are the largest felid species in the New World and the only member of the
genus Panthera, the roaring cats, that occurs in the Americas and is the third largest wildcat
after Tigers and Lions. A jaguar's strength is astonishing. In proportion to their size, jaguars
can carry and pull very big animals. The largest jaguar on record weighed only 350 pounds but jaguars
have been seen dragging full-grown horses for more than a mile. One jaguar dragged a horse several
hundred yards then swam across a river with it!
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Distribution:
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The range of the jaguar has shrunk greatly in the last 100 years. Whereas it formerly ranged
into the southwestern United States, it is now confined to southern Mexico and parts of Central
and South America. The last jaguar killed in California was in 1860 and jaguars had disappeared
from the United States by 1950.
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Habitat:
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Usually found near water in moist forest, but also occur in more arid habitats such as savannah
and scrub where water is available.
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Primary prey:
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As opportunistic hunters, jaguars will eat just about anything they catch. They kill with a
powerful, fatal bite usually delivered to the prey's head. An excellent swimmer, jaguars eat
fish, turtles, caimans, and snakes as well as deer, sloths, capybaras, monkeys, and armadillos.
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Conservation Status:
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The IUCN currently lists the jaguar as near threatened. The jaguar is fully protected at the
national level across most of its range.
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Principal threats:
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Deforestation rates are high in Latin America and fragmentation of forest habitat isolates jaguar
populations so that they are more vulnerable to the predations of man. People compete with jaguars
for prey, and jaguars are frequently shot on sight, despite protective legislation. Jaguars are
also known to kill cattle, and are killed by ranchers as pest species. The vulnerability of the
jaguar to persecution is demonstrated by its disappearance by the mid-1900's from the south-western
US and northern Mexico. Commercial hunting and trapping of jaguars for their pelts has declined
drastically since the mid-1970's, when anti-fur campaigns and CITES controls progressively shut
down international markets.
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