Impressive Wild Jaguars - Pictures and Videos

[Dark Jaguar]

FANTASMA VS XAVIER

credits: Oncafari youtube channel

In this video the creator of the Onçafari Project Mario Haberfeld interviews the Project's coordinator Lilian Rampim about Fantasma and Xavier posted in early 2015. (I am gonna summarize it).

About Fantasma
- Fantasma is a very old male Jag and he was the first Male Jag to inhabit the Refúgio Ecológico Caiman Reserve when it was created and we had followed his steps many times. his personality is that of a very confident male Jag that was comfortable with the ranger's presence, we once spotted him sleeping next to the car maybe due to him being a dominant male he felt really confident himself. He was spotted in all camera traps and he used to patrol the whole reserve by himself. we were fortunate enough to see him hunting down and eating a Tapir all by himself and he ate it all in three nights without minding the ranger's presence. But in October 2013 was the last time we saw him around the reserve.

About Xavier
- As a huge coincidence in early October 2013 we had our last sightings of Fantasma and in mid October 2013 we spotted a new male jaguar in the reserve and we nicknamed him Xavier. Since then Xavier was regularly spotted patrolling every place Fantasma used to and also he was often seen mating with the females from the reserve, after a while he is now really confident with us like Fantasma was, we believe that this behavior of such confidence is a characteristic of dominant males Jaguars, and we never saw Fantasma ever again. So we assume that Xavier as a younger male stronger, more robust and stockier he might have either expelled Fantasma from the area or Fantasma left to rule a smaller area with less competition or Fantasma died in a fight with Xavier or he passed away due to old age and our hopes of spotting Fantasma alive is starting to shrink unfortunately.

But its a natural thing given the fact the datas tell us that a wild Jag can live around 14 years and we thought Fantasma was 12/13 years old so we were all sad about his absence but now it seems that Xavier will definitely be the father of the next generation of wild jags here at Refúgio Ecológico Caiman. Reply