Jaguar

The jaguar is the largest cat in the Americas: a compact, deep-chested animal with a big rounded head, short sturdy legs and the shortest tail of any big cat. The coat runs from pale gold to rusty red with large black rosettes, most of which enclose one or more small dark spots; a leopard's rosettes lack these inner spots. Spots merge into bands near the tail tip, and black (melanistic) jaguars occur, their rosettes still visible in good light. Animals from the Pantanal and the Venezuelan llanos are much heavier than those of Central America (Wikipedia, general species account; Handbook of the Mammals of the World).

Across its range the jaguar is a solitary stalk-and-ambush hunter that is rarely far from rivers, lakes or swamps. It swims strongly, crosses large rivers, and often kills with a bite through the back of the skull; its jaws can pierce turtle shells and caiman hide. Studies in the Pantanal found much of the diet there to be aquatic reptiles and fish, and showed that home ranges shrink in the wet season, when floods push prey onto higher ground. Activity can be day or night: forest and Pantanal jaguars are often active in daylight (Wikipedia, general species account; Handbook of the Mammals of the World).

Bolivia lies in the heart of the jaguar's range, from Amazon rainforest to the Pantanal and the Gran Chaco. On this guide it is a target species at Madidi, Noel Kempff Mercado, Amboró, the Chiquitanía, the Bolivian Pantanal, Kaa-Iya del Gran Chaco and the Jaguarland Reserve. By 2014 deforestation had broken the direct links between two of Bolivia's jaguar conservation areas, and interviews with 533 people in the northwestern Bolivian Amazon found that jaguars were killed out of fear, in retaliation for attacks on livestock, and for trade (Wikipedia, citing published studies).