Facts about jaguars

Jaguars are amazing animals. These predators are able to cope with almost any prey, while they are extremely secretive and inventive. To see a jaguar, if he does not want, is almost impossible – this can be confirmed by any wildlife researcher. Fortunately, in the mass of their jaguars rarely attack people, preferring their more common prey.

  • Jaguars are the third largest among all big cats.
  • The largest jaguar, ever found by researchers, weighed 158 kilograms. However, usually jaguars weigh less – in the range of 100-120 kilograms.
  • Jaguar lives only in the New World – in South and Central America.
  • The name “Jaguar”, quite possibly, comes from a similarly sounding word from the Guarani language, spoken by Indians in the territory of modern Paraguay. The word is translated as “the beast that kills with one blow”).
  • At one time, many Indian tribes worshiped the jaguars, honoring them for sacred animals.
  • In the trees, jaguars climb no worse than leopards.
  • Jaguars, contrary to popular belief, do not know how to growl at all. An angry jaguar hisses and snorts before attacking, and does not growl.
  • Jaguars can interbreed with lions. True, the resulting offspring are born sterile, without the ability to reproduce further.
  • The color of the jaguar is very similar to the color of other representatives of the cat family – ocelots, cheetahs and leopards.
  • The hunting grounds of a single jaguar can reach fifty square kilometers, or even more.
  • Jaguars swim well. There is evidence that they swam huge distances – tens of kilometers.
  • The pattern of stains on the skin of a jaguar is unique – there are no two identical jaguars in nature.
  • Jaguars sometimes attack even crocodiles, though, mostly on young animals – an adult crocodile is too dangerous for this proud member of the cat family.
  • To overcome water obstacles, jaguars often use logs in the same way that people would use them – they cling to them and row.
  • Jaws jaguar larger and more massive than any other representative of the family of felines.
  • Jaguars are able to imitate the voices of monkeys to lure the congeners of the latter. In particular, researchers have seen how the jaguar imitated the cries of a cub of a monkey. Adult monkeys hurried to the rescue, but, fortunately, they noticed the predator in time and disappeared.
  • Jaguars lead an exceptionally nocturnal lifestyle, preferring to sleep somewhere in the day in a hiding place.
  • Jaguar hunts any prey – from small rodents to large mammals like deer or water lilies.
  • The most ancient fossil remains of the jaguar, ever found, lay in the earth for about two million years.
  • There have been recorded cases of attacks by jaguars even on large anacondas, which are the largest snakes on the planet.
  • Unlike the cheetah, who prefers to attack the victim with a swift jerk, the jaguars attack from the ambush.
  • Jaguars attack people extremely rarely, mostly only in case of self-defense.
  • All life, the jaguars spend alone, meeting each other only during the breeding season.
  • The best warriors of the Maya Indians in ancient times called themselves jaguars. Only they were allowed to wear the robe from the skin of this beast.
  • Until the age of two, only half of the jaguar cubs survive.