Panthera onca: A Life in the America's

The scientific name Panthera onca is known to most people as the jaguar. In South America the name for it is “yaguara” which means a beast that kills its prey with one bound. The jaguar is on the endangered species list in the United States, Central, and South America.

The jaguar is the largest cat in the western hemisphere and the third largest cat in the world. They can reach a length of 4 feet and a height of 2.5 to 3 feet. The tail of the jaguar is anywhere from 18-30 inches. Females range from 100 to 200 pounds and the males range between 125 to 250 pounds. The cubs weigh around 25 to 32 ounces at birth (Animal, 2000: 1).

The background of the jaguar’s coat is pale yellow and lightened to whitish on the throat and belly. The jaguar is marked with small isolated spots on the head and neck with dark open ring structures, rosettes, on the sides and flank that generally contain one to four dark spots inside the rings. Melanistic jaguars are also common, resulting in coats that are heavily pigmented, appearing almost black, with the rosette pattern visible only in strong light. When the jaguar is melanistic it resembles that of th

The jaguar reaches sexual maturity at 3 years of age. It engages in non-seasonal mating in the tropical regions while in the extremes of the range the mating season is during early autumn. Gestation lasts from 93-110 days. A mother gives birth to 1-4 cubs annually. The cubs are born blind and do not leave the den for two weeks. They learn how to hunt after six months and stay with their mother for up to two years (Animal, 2000: 1).

One positive outlook is that commercial hunting and trapping of jaguars for their pelts has declined drastically since the mid 1970’s, when anti-fur campaigns gathered steam and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) controls progressively shut down international markets. Organized poaching rings, in which fur buyers traveled through the country supplying traps and buying pelts from local people, are a thing of the past (Cohn, 2002: 2).

Some topics in this essay:
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