Encountering a beautiful jaguar cub in the wild!

This beautiful big boy is around 8 months old. His mother is a wild collared jaguar, which means that he has been monitored since he was very little, and is habituated to safari vehicles, not minding our presence at all, as he learned from his mother that we are not a threat. What a privilege it is to witness them being completely wild, in their natural habitat!

The Jaguar (Panthera onca) is the largest cat species in the American continent and the third-largest in the world. It shares the Panthera genus with four other big cats: the Lion (Panthera leo), the Tiger (Panthera tigris), the Leopard (Panthera pardus), and the Snow Leopard (Panthera uncia).

It has a stocky body and short, thick and powerful limbs, making the jaguar a great climber and swimmer. The proportionally bigger head grants it an extremely powerful jaw, being able to bite through any prey and drag it.

Although the jaguar is often confused with the leopard, it is considerably sturdier and heavier than its African cousin, and it has a rounder head. The rosettes are also different, being larger, sometimes darker, and fewer in number; the contours are thicker and there is a small spot in the center. Each animal has a unique coat pattern, like fingerprints. The head and neck generally have solid spots instead of rosettes; and the same happens on the tail, where they may merge and form a ring.

Females are usually 10 to 20% smaller than males, but the smallest male recorded weighed only 36 Kg, and the largest male 158 Kg. Sizes vary according to regions and habitats. The largest jaguars occur in open flood plains areas, in Venezuela and Brazil, and the smallest jaguars are found in the dense forests of Central America.