Jaguars, Panthera onca, are large cats (up to 4 feet long, 3 feet high and 250 pounds) ranging from the southwestern United States to South America. They live in a variety of habitats, from desert to jungle. Each individual jaguar occupies a home range, where it hunts animals such as deer, peccaries, agoutis, fish, turtles and even small alligators. They are most active at night, shy of humans, and, as their habitat is destroyed by human activity, increasingly rare...so little is known of their behavior. Pronatura Peninsula de Yucatan (PPY), a conservation group in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, is monitoring jaguar populations by setting out infrared-detecting cameras in the jungle at El Zapotal, a private reserve. The pictures linked here are among those collected by PPY's cameras; biologists are able to tell individual cats apart by the differences in the shape and distribution of their spots!

PPY biologists and TIDES project staff examine jaguar tracks in the mud at El Zapotal.
Video (59 seconds)

PPY biologists and TIDES project staff inspect jaguar scats to determine (by the presence of hair and bones in the feces) what the cats had been eating.
Video:coatimundi and brocket deer (24 seconds)
Video: undetermined (59 seconds)
Video: brocket deer (1 minute, 19 seconds)

PPY biologists set up two remote infrared cameras used to photograph jaguars and other animals at El Zapotal.
Video (5 minutes, 26 seconds)
Video (4 minutes, 20 seconds)

Click here to see other cat species photographed at El Zapotal.

Related Links:
Jaguar (Big Cat Rescue)
Jaguar (Mammals of Texas)
Panthera onca (Animal Diversity Web)

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Photos: top, Pronatura Peninsula de Yucatan; bottom, Brent Burt, SFASU Biology Department
Video: Priscilla Coulter, SFASU Library