Diet:
Over 85 species have been recorded in the jaguar's diet. Large prey such as peccary, deer, ocelots, tapir and capybara are favored but jaguars will eat almost anything that can be caught. In areas where cattle ranching is widespread, domestic livestock may become the most frequently targeted prey species. Jaguars are the only big cat which regularly kills prey (especially capybaras) by piercing the skull with their canines. It is suggested that the massive head and stout canines are an adaptation to "cracking open" well-armored reptilian prey such as land tortoises and river turtles.
Their ability to survive the great Pleistocene extinction that saw the disappearance of many large ungulates and their predators may be related to the jaguar's ability to take advantage of a super-abundant prey base of aquatic reptiles (turtles, caimans and snakes). |
