Indrajit Latey Indrajit Latey has worked in the fields of wildlife management and nature tourism for over 20 years. His interest in wildlife was ignited during his childhood years when he spent many summers in Melghat Tiger Reserve in India's western state of...

The Enigmatic Jaguar

The Pantanal in Brazil is a seasonally flooded inland delta system covering 150,000 square kilometers, making it the world’s most extensive tropical wetland. It is also a World Heritage Site because of its incredible animal and plant diversity. It is famed for being the only site on the planet where encountering a Jaguar is more likely than conceivable.
Jaguars are the giant wild cats in the Americas and the third-largest big cats in the world. They are solitary and elusive (after tigers and lions). They have the most powerful bite of any large cat and can crush a fully grown caiman’s head.
It is the fondest of water of any large cat. The caiman, a crocodile-like reptile, is the principal prey of the jaguar in the Pantanal.
While jaguars are primarily nocturnal hunters, they are active throughout the day in the Pantanal, making it the finest site in the world to see them in the wild. They only Live 12-15 years.
Jaguars and leopards are stunning spotted large cats that look so similar that most people can’t tell them apart. Can you, however, learn to tell them apart? The good news is that you’ll never have to guess which of these two cats you’re looking at in the wild again. You can only found Jaguars and leopards on separate continents.
Jaguars used to be found from the southern United States to northern Argentina. They now inhabit around half of their original range and list “Near Threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.
This range is diminishing as a result of habitat destruction and degradation in a human-dominated environment.
In Brazil, there are now two strongholds for jaguars. The Amazon rainforest in the country’s north is home to the world’s most significant number of jaguars. The Pantanal, located farther south and smack dab in the nation’s heart, is home to the country’s second-largest population.
So, where is the finest spot in the world to observe Brazil’s national animal in the wild? The Pantanal in Brazil. Unlike the Amazon, the Pantanal is an open terrain that provides the ideal setting for viewing some of Brazil’s most famous species. The network of streams and ox-bow lakes upstream from the tiny fishing village of Porto Jofre (250 kilometers from Cuiaba) is the finest spot to see jaguars in the wild.
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