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Scientific Name - Panthera Onca Jaguars can live for 11-12 years in the wild and 20 years in captivity.  Commanding fear and respect throughout Latin America, the jaguar looms larger than life.  All of the big cats have inspired their share of myths and legends, but few have played such a pivotable role in the religion and culture of a continent as the jaguar.  The jaguar is the largest cat in the Western hemisphere, but it was more than its size that impressed the Indians.  For the Indians, the jaguar embodied immeasureable power.  Its name, translated, means 'a beast that kills its prey with one bound'.  The jaguar is the ultimate predator, the dominant power in the forest, an animal that uses its strength and cunning to overcome other animals.  The jaguar masters all dimensions - it climbs, it swims, and it roams the dense forest with ease.  For the largest predator in the Americas, almost no prey is too ambitious a target. The jaguar's robust power has given it the reputation of being immense.  In reality, jaguars are smaller than legend or looks would have people believe.  In Central Amercia, males typically weigh around 120 pounds and females around 80 pounds.  The largest jaguars have been found in Brazil, where males top the scales above 200 pounds, while females weigh up to 170 pounds. Jaguars live in a surprisingly wide range of habitats.  When people think of jaguar habitat, many of them get an image of dense tropical rainforest.  That's true, but they also survive in the swampy grasslands in Brazil, the high altitudes of Peru, and the low scrub in fairly arid lands in Mexico.  In general, though, they seem to prefer livin near water.  Jaguars swim well, and like the tiger, may spend the heat of the day half submerged in a stream.

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