Size comparisons

[GuateGojira]

(04-16-2022, 01:50 AM)Twico5 Wrote: Ofc its due to prey base. My point was that freshwater environments in south and central america have plenty of semi aquatic and reptillian prey. 

If you were to remove venezuela and pantanal from those samples the weight for male jags and male pumas would be the same (both around ~65kg). The Venezuelan and pantanal samples are both from floodplain areas. Cattle ranch distribution map: 

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author
Notice how the Llanos and pantanal regions especially have the highest densities. Again these are also jaguar-filled floodplain regions with tons of reptillian and semi-aquatic prey. 

Without the pantanal and llanos, cougars are the same size on average and max. 

Puma weights from proceedings of the Washington academy of sciences volume 3: 

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author
This is the same as the amazon average for male jags which btw is a really high average weight for amazonian jaguars. Also, in the screenshots you posted the lowest weight for male pumas and male jags was the same. So now tell me, is there really that much of a size difference? Under the same conditions would a jaguar be larger than a puma? 

I dont have the pampas sample on me but i will try to find it now

Interesting hypotesis, but the problem is that reptiles are not a very important source of prey for jaguars, is not even a preferred prey, check this:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

As you can see, reptiles are not important and are just preyed relatively to its abundance. Also, even when there is overlap (like with leopards), jaguars are always heavier than pumas when they share habitat, so the estimation of 65 kg that you propuse is not correct, check again the figures from Sunquist & Sunquist (2002) that I showed previously. 

About the table that you place, can you please show the correct reference? to say "Proceedings of the Washington academy of sciences volume 3" do not facilitate the search. Even then, these are only three males and do not say if they are of the same area.

About your question on the lowest average, yes, there is a difference and a significant one. The lightest population of jaguars is from Belize (famous for been small) and there the prey base is very low, they mostly eat armadillo while deers with pecaries live a relative low density, so that is why jaguars in this area are small. Now the lightest pumas in that list came from Florida, and they have a much better prey base than in Belize, there had a good body size (check the measurements) and they still don't reach the body masses of jaguars in similar habitats. This means that in order to have similar body masses, jaguars need to have a lower prey base and small size than pumas.

Actually, this conversation is silly, as we are talking about a Panthera and a Felis/Puma, the Panthera will be always bigger and stronger. That is why I say that leopards are better to compare than jaguars. You say that the arms of the pumas are the same as jaguars, but that is not correct, not even close. Reply