ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - C - THE JAGUAR (Panthera onca)

[epaiva]

(01-13-2018, 08:23 AM)Greatearth Wrote: epaiva 

1.
The jaguar in Los Llanos, Pantanal, and other parts of the Americas look exactly the same besides their size. Is it possible to distinguish them as appearance?

This is what it says from the Wikipedia

"In 1939, Reginald Innes Pocock recognized eight subspecies based on geographic origins and skull morphology of these specimens
    Panthera onca onca (Linnaeus, 1758): Venezuela through the Amazon
    P. o. peruviana (De Blainville, 1843): Coastal Peru
    P. o. hernandesii (Gray, 1857): Western Mexico
    P. o. centralis (Mearns, 1901): El Salvador to Colombia
    P. o. arizonensis (Goldman, 1932): Southern Arizona to Sonora, Mexico
    P. o. goldmani (Goldman, 1932): Yucatán Peninsula to Belize and Guatemala
    P. o. veraecrucis (Nelson and Goldman, 1933): Central Texas to southeastern Mexico
    P. o. paraguensis (Nelson and Goldman, 1933) or P. o. palustris: the Pantanal regions of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, along the Paraguay River into Paraguay and northeastern Argentina"


To be honest, I can't really distinguish jaguar by looking their appearance.


2.
As for ecology and nature, what are the difference between Los llanos and Pantanal? Los llanos looks more open area than Pantanal and Pantanal has more water in general (besides rainy season in llanos).

Is there any relationship between the jaguar in los llanos and orinoco crocodile? The orinoco crocodile is 3rd largest Crocodilians along with the black caiman and american crocodile. There are many records like 6 to 6.6 m long orinoco crocodile, but recent measurements from today shows 5.2 m is the largest orinoco crocodile.


3.
So this is the map of Los Llanos. I guess los llanos jaguars in colombia are the same size as los llanos jaguars in venezuela.

*This image is copyright of its original author

@Greatearth

You are right all Jaguars look exactly the same besides their size. Venezuelan Llanos and Colombian Llanos are a lot like El Pantanal but Pantanal is huge compared to los Llanos, in the Venezuelan llanos you find only a few big Ranches called Hatos where its wildlife is protected but in Pantanal you find many big ranches that are gaining a lot of money from Ecotourism and people dont hunt its wildlife and Jaguars are doing great and you can find them during the night and during the day too, they are not afraid of people like they are in Venezuela and Colombia.

I have not seen any information of Jaguars predating Orinoco Crocodiles, big Orinoco Crocodiles are just too big and powerful for a Jaguar,  with larger individuals today reaching 5 meters long in males and 4 meters long females, it is very common to find big males over 4 meters long and females over 3 mt. Numbers of Orinoco Crocodiles are very low, in Venezuela there are about 2000 Orinoco Crocodiles and Colombia has only 200 of them.

Jaguars in Colombia are a lot like the Jaguars from los LLanos. Reply