Charlotte Guillain - Jaguars

The word jaguar comes from an American Indian word, yaguar . This is thought tomean large beast of prey or possibly he who kills with one leap.

The jaguar is one of the largest, most powerful big cats and is the biggest cat inNorth and South America. A jaguar has a similar coat to a leopard, with golden-brownishfur patterned with dark spots, called rosettes . Sometimes the spots on a jaguarsback blend together to look like a stripe. This fearsome hunter has a strong, sturdy,muscular body, with a large head and powerful jaws. Jaguars can vary in size accordingto where they live, but the males are always much larger than the females. A malejaguar can weigh as much as 350 pounds (160 kilograms), while the heaviest femalesweigh about 187 pounds (85 kilograms).

Some jaguars and leopards have completely black fur and are often called black panthers.Animals that have black fur rather than the typical coloring for their species aredescribed as melanistic . A change in their genes has made this happen. Scientiststhink the black fur helps to camouflage the jaguar in darker places and so it hasbecome a useful adaptation for survival.

A female jaguar can have some cubs with patterned coats and some with black fur inthe same litter.

All living things are put into groups, or classified , by scientists. This helps toidentify every living thing accurately and to explain how and why they live wherethey do. Classification means grouping living things according to the features thatthey share.

This diagram shows how the jaguar is classified.

Classification triangles are used to show how each living thing is classified. Towardsthe bottom of the triangle each group contains fewer and fewer members. For example,there are fewer animals in the order Carnivora (carnivores) than there are in theclass Mammalia (mammals), and so on.

Jaguars are in the family Felidae, which includes all cats, large and small, wildand domesticated.

Living things are given a scientific name, such as Panthera onca , so they have asingle name rather than many different names in different languages. Sometimes livingthings are grouped into subspecies within a species because of small differencesbetween them. There are no subspecies of jaguar but their size varies in differentregions.

Leopards look similar to jaguars but have longer bodies and are slimmer and lighter.

Where Do Jaguars Live?

All wild animals live in a habitat. This is the place where an animal can find everythingit needs to live, such as food, water, and shelter. Jaguars live in a range of habitats,such as dense forests, grasslands, swamps, and even deserts. They tend to live wherethere is plenty of water, either near rivers or streams or in swampland. Jaguarscan live as far north as the southern United States. Today they are mostly foundin remote parts of Central and South America, ranging from Mexico to the north ofArgentina. The biggest population of jaguars lives in the vast Amazon rainforest.

Use this map to see where jaguars live around the world.