Big Brother

The jaguar, whose scientific name is Panthera onca, is one of the ten species of wild cats that live in Argentina and one of the six that are found in the Misiones province. It is the biggest feline of the American Continent and its size holds a third place on a world-wide scale, right after the tiger and the great lion.

The jaguar stands out by its robust aspect and the proportionally big head with a powerful jaw structure. The males can reach 2.50 meters in length, including the tail, and 140 kg of weight. 

One more spot does make the difference

In its natural context, the unique coat it wears allows him to camouflage its silhouette and to approach its potential meal unnoticed. The jaguar shows a golden-yellow fur with abundant, black marks at the sides and the back forming open circles.  These open circles are constituted by a series of spots and / or stripes that enclose a sector of browner coloration, that can even have other black dots in the middle (this characteristic differs him from the leopard). The “circles” can reach a diameter of 10 cm. The neck also shows spots and never stripes as is the case of with smaller felines like the ocelot. The abdomen is white with dispersed black stripes. The pattern of the marks of each jaguar is unique, like our fingerprints, which allows for each individual jaguar to be identified.

c.1) Special fur patterns

Within jaguar populations, cases can occur of dark-furred jaguars, similar to the panther. These are cases of melanism. In some cultures, melanic jaguars receive special local names like yaguareté-hú, onça preta or yaguará-pichuna.

Names of the real beast

The extended geographic distribution of this carnivore has led to many names for it, all according to the culture and the region where it lives and lived. In almost all its present range in Argentina it is popularly called tiger. But also, other cultures give different names to the “true or real beast” (the meaning of its name in guaraní), such as Nahuel (araucano); Yaguareté, Yagua-pará or guazú Chiví (guaraní); Uturunco (quechua); the Overo, the Manchado (Salta), the Michilo, the Compadre, or the Bicho (kollas).

Kinships

The jaguar is the only Neotropical representative of the genus Panthera, which also includes the lion, the Bengalese tiger, the African leopard and the snow-leopard. The five species originate from one common ancestor, approximately 3.5 million years ago. It is thought that the jaguar is related or descends from an Old World extinct feline, the European jaguar (Panthera gombaszoegensis) that spread through the Strait of Bering a million years ago. The present jaguar species is composed by several subspecies along its distribution over the American continent. Panthera onca palustris is the specie that lives in Argentina.

What´s our king of the jungle like?

1) Solitaire and a great swimmer

The “tiger” is an excellent swimmer and its tracks are very frequently found near water sources. It also is a skilled climber. Jaguars are territorial animals and spend most of their time alone. They occasionally roar during the night or the day, with series of individual, deep, resonant throaty roars, that can be heard at several hundred meters of distance.

2) Favourite plates

Its diet is wide and varied. It feeds on large vertebrates like the tapir, capybaras, peccaries and deer. Its diet also includes pacas, agouties, coatis, yacare caimans and smaller prey like turtles, lizards, birds, fish, cavies and rabbits.

After killing its bigger preys he usually transports it to a safe place to consume it during several days. The jaguar doesn´t “cover” its prey, that means it does not hide it with leaves or loose vegetation.  However, it frequently stays near the prey leftovers because the tropical heat makes the prey to rot quickly and, in addition, this way it avoids the consumption by scavenger birds like vultures.

13) Family life

The female jaguars give birth to one up to four cubs each time, although they generally have two. The cub is born blind after approximately 100 days of pregnancy. They weigh 700 to 900 grams and open their eyes after 13 days of life. They stay about two years with their mother and at the age of 3 or 4 they reach the adult size and sexual maturity.

Your house and my house: the home of the jaguar

1) From South to North

The jaguar is one of the carnivores with wider distribution in the Americas; historically it inhabited a great diversity of ecosystems between the Southwest of the United States and the borders of the Rio Negro, in Patagonia, Argentina. Nevertheless, at the moment the jaguar is distributed, in a discontinuous way, from a small area of the South of the United States (South Arizona and New Mexico) and the North of Mexico to the North of Argentina. In South America its range of distribution has decreased a 38 percent, the biggest populations now concentrated in the Brazilian-Bolivian Pantanal and some areas of Venezuela.

2) The jaguar and the jungle of Misiones

Misiones owns the largest remnants of the Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest that is left of all the area that it originally covered, from the centre - South of Brazil, extending to the east of Paraguay and including the whole province of Misiones.  

Thus, the forest of Misiones represents hope for the entire region, since the maintenance of the many different species that live here depend on the conservation and the good use of the jungle. The province is the most biodiversity-rich region of Argentina and one of the most important of the continent. The survival of emblematic species, not only the jaguar but also other animal and plants that only live in this place of the world, depend on the care of this region, as well as also depend other resources that the jungle has to offer: wood, food, medicines, etc. and environmental services like the quality of water, soil and the regulation of the climate.

A living symbol of our culture

In the past, the jaguar was distributed over the whole country. This presence is reflected in the symbolic importance that the specie had for different indigenous cultures and peoples. In the Guaraní mythology the jaguar is considered a sacred animal. In Misiones, natives and farmers do not name it because they say that when invoking it “he appears”. Their force, power and mystery originated legends, myths and also anecdotes and stories of our pioneers and of those who today live near the forest, which are passed from generation to generation.