Beware Its Jaws
By Owen Weller
The Body of a Jaguar
Diet
Jaguars have a huge variety of prey. They will eat deer, peccary, crocodiles, snakes, sloths, tapins, turtles, and frogs on the ground but they will also climb trees and eat monkeys and birds. Surprisingly, jaguars love water. They go into the water to play and will even catch fish! With all those hunting abilities no wonder jaguars are top-level carnivores!
Young jaguars!!!!!!!!
Jaguar resting on a nice tree
A jaguar opening its powerful jaws
Life Cycle of a Young Jaguar
Jaguars vs Leopards
Even though jaguars and leopards are very similar they are also very different. Jaguars are all the same species [ they have no subspecies]. But leopards have eight subspecies: Anatolian, North Persian, South Arabian, Amur, Javan, North Chinese and Sri Lankan. People sometimes confuse the jaguar and leopard because of the spots on their back. One difference between the spots is the jaguar's spots become larger rosette shaped spots soon the back of its body while the leopard's spots stay smaller.
Another difference between the cats are that mother jaguars give birth to one to four cubs while leopards give birth to two to three cubs. Leopard cubs stay in their den for eight weeks while jaguar cubs stay in their den for two weeks.
Surprisingly, baby leopards start hunting at three months old while jaguar cubs start hunting at six months. Baby leopards start living alone before they are two while jaguars start living alone at the age of three. As you can see, there are a lot of differences between these two cats.
Diagram of a jaguar
Diagram of a leopard
A jaguar carefully stalking its prey
We must save the jaguars
There is one solution to all these problem's : us. In order to save jaguar we must protect them. Maybe, we can even return the cats to the United States. Sadly, not all people feel that way. Farmers see jaguars as threats to their crops and cattle. Hopefully, the government will side with these awesome cats and make it illegal to hunt them.