All you want to know about the deadly Jaguar

By Umang Rajpurohit

The Jaguar is the most feared predator in latin America, not even the largest herbivores are safe from one of the strongest bites in the animal kingdom. Back in the day they could even kill the megafauna some of the megafaunas were as big as the present times elephants(which are the biggest of all the animals).

Their Vigorous Strength

They are the real wrestlers of the animal kingdom. Their bodies with their powerful legs sharp claws and stocky build are designed to grapple their prey and to sever their spines. This was the most effective method for hunting their giant pre-historic prey five hundred thousand years ago, when jaguar first entered South America the continent was home to megafauna some animals used to be as big as the elephants.

Jaguars very quickly adapted with the new environment and got the specialisation in killing the animal 5 times more bigger than it's size. They used camouflage strategy to stalk their prey and the rosettes on their skin helps them blend in with the dark and dense jungle. When they are close enough they pounce on their prey climbing on its back and biting on its neck until it snaps, if the prey is small enough they might bite through the skull to stab the brain with their long fangs this killing strategy requires immense bite strength.

Jaguars are the strongest among all felines even stronger them the much larger siberian tiger. Jaguar's jaws can produce 700 kilograms of force and drag down animals as heavy as a bowl they can even crack open turtle shells this diet sustained a large. Jaguar population until and even deadlier predator showed up us, humans hunted all herbivores larger than 6.5 kilograms and the jaguars ranged to extinction.

Jaguar had to adopt their diet before the homo sapiens arrived on this planet(what ? they arrived, from where ?) jaguars used to eat giant prime rib steak but in the new world they had to eat the tapas and that was the reason they shrunk in size.

Jaguars in the holocene(epoch) could weigh up to 200 kilograms but the largest modern jaguars are about half of their ancestor's size in areas with low large prey density. They can be as small aas 50 kilograms, but even the liliputan jaguars are immensely tough to beat hunters and they can even catch the largest of all the extent herbivores found in the tropical americas.

 Their current diet consists mostly of deer peccaries caimans and capybara though monkeys and tapirs are also caught on occasion happy barra seemed to be their preferred prey and it's not rare to find capybara, skulls with two perforations on their sides anything smaller than 20 kilograms is usually not energy efficient enough for a jaguar to chase the smaller prey is mostly caught by pumas which are simpatric with jaguars their biggest available prey however domestic cattle which is a bit ironic because they were introduced to america by the same species that killed of all of their historic prey.

About Me

               Umang is a student of geography pursuing bachelor's in geography  who enjoys indulging his passion including reading geography  books and writing  geography articles. This blog is about 10 Popular National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries Everyone Should Visit . My goal is to make every post valuable and something I'd want to read. Its mostly a Educational blog, meant to inspire. You can find my videos on youtube  (there's a link in the upper right to jump to them) but posts are almost about geography .Other than writing blog on geography i also do illustration on Instagram. Enjoy Umang