Jaguar

The jaguar is a large wild cat that lives in the forests, swamps, and grasslands of Central and South America. It is the biggest cat in the Americas and the third-biggest in the world, after the tiger and the lion. An adult jaguar usually weighs between 120 and 250 pounds. Its body stretches five to six feet long, not counting a tail of about two feet.

Jaguars have golden-yellow fur covered in dark spots called rosettes. Each rosette looks like a small ring with one or more dots inside it. This pattern helps the jaguar hide in the shadows of the rainforest. Some jaguars are born almost completely black, but if you look closely, you can still see the rosettes under the dark fur. These black jaguars are sometimes called panthers.

People often mix up jaguars and leopards. The two cats look alike, but leopards live in Africa and Asia, while jaguars live only in the Americas. Jaguars are also heavier and have bigger heads. Their rosettes have spots inside; leopard rosettes usually do not.

A jaguar's bite is its most famous weapon. Most big cats kill by biting the throat. The jaguar often bites straight through the skull instead. Its jaws can crack open a turtle's thick shell and crush the armor of a caiman, a type of crocodile. Jaguars eat more than 85 kinds of animals, including fish, deer, monkeys, snakes, and capybaras.

Jaguars are strong swimmers. Unlike most cats, they love water and often hunt in rivers and swamps. They can climb trees well too, sometimes dropping down on prey from above. Jaguars usually live alone, except when a mother is raising cubs. Cubs stay with their mother for about two years before heading off on their own.

The jaguar has been important to people in the Americas for thousands of years. The Maya, the Aztecs, and the Olmecs all treated the jaguar as a powerful spirit. Maya kings wore jaguar skins and sat on jaguar thrones. Some Maya gods were shown with jaguar faces. Old stone carvings of jaguars still stand in ruined cities across Mexico and Central America.

Today jaguars are in trouble. Farms, ranches, and roads have cut their forests into smaller pieces. Poachers hunt them for their skins and teeth. Scientists think only about 170,000 jaguars are left in the wild. In the United States, jaguars once roamed as far north as the Grand Canyon. A few have been spotted in Arizona in recent years, slowly returning to land they once ruled.