Maya
Panthera
onca - Jaguar
Maya is a South American
Jaguar. He was born in captivity in 1998 and was part of an exchange
of cats
conducted to diversify the species
at Cat Tales and the Grand Island Zoo in Nebraska.
Maya weighs approximately
250 pounds and has a captive
lifespan of 18-22 years.
Jaguars in the wild may live to an age of 10 years.
Jaguars are the only New
World member of the Panthera Family
and the largest of the American cats. The Jaguar’s big bones,
heavy chest and well-muscled
forelegs make this cat heavier and more
powerful than the Puma or Old
World Leopard,
which look somewhat similar. A male Jaguar may reach over 6
feet in length
plus a long tail, and may
weigh up to 400 pounds. The coat of rather bristly fur ranges
from yellow to
tawny with whitish underparts. It is
spotted with rosettes sometimes merging
to form a solid line along the spine
and making rings on the tail.
Melanistic
coats (black-coated like these) can occur in the same litter as spotted
cubs.
Melanistic jaguars have
the same spot pattern, it is just harder to see.
The jaguar is usually a
solitary hunter and almost exclusively nocturnal.
It’s prey includes deer, tapirs and pig-like
peccaries. Jaguars are good swimmers
and find an easy prey in capybara and
they also fish.
They climb well and take
monkeys and other tree-living animals,
though their weight prevents their
climbing
to higher branches where
monkeys and sloths flee to keep out of reach.
At the beginning of this century Jaguars
ranged from southern California and Arizona
to as far south as the Rio Negro in Argentina. It has now been
exterminated in the United States,
through most of Mexico, much of Central America and at the other
end of its range
from Uruguay and all but the far north of Argentina.
Because of the demand for its fur, over
15,000 jaguars were killed each year during the 1960’s.
It is now considered
endangered.
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