Modern Weights and Measurements of Jaguars

[Maritimus77]

Just recently I've read into a work dealing with the skull measurements of various jaguar populations which was published by Hoogesteijn & Mondolfi in 1996. I've made a few notes and wrote down some of the data being investigated and this should serve as a short summary (or reference point) when talking about my favourite big cat's skull.

Pantanal Jaguar:


Condylobasal Length: 252.32mm for males (n=?); 227.25mm for females (n=?)
Greatest Skull Length: 290.5mm for males (n=48); 257.6mm for females (n=28)
Zygomatic Width: 194.2mm for males (n=48); 172.5mm for females (n=28)
Total Score (Length + Width): 485.2mm for males (n=51); 428.6mm for females (n=31)
Upper Carnassial Tooth Length: 29.25mm for males (n=?); 27.69mm for females (n=?)
Interorbital Breadth: 52.15mm for males (n=?); 45.38mm for females (n=?)
Length/Width Ratio: ~1.496 for males (n=48); ~1.493 for females (n=28)



Llanos Jaguar:



Condylobasal Length: 251.3mm for males (n=?); 219.98mm for females (n=?)
Greatest Skull Length: 289.6mm for males (n=23); 242.8mm for females (n=23)
Zygomatic Width: 194.1mm for males (n=23); 166.1mm for females (n=23)
Total Score (Length + Width): 483.7mm for males (n=23); 408.9mm for females (n=23)
Upper Carnassial Tooth Length: 28.26mm for males (n=?); 26.3mm for females (n=?)
Interorbital Breadth: 55.92mm for males (n=?); 48.26mm for females (n=?)
Length/Width Ratio: ~1.492 for males (n=23); ~1.462 for females (n=23)



Amazon Jaguar:



Condylobasal Length: 235.31mm for males (n=?); 209.9mm for females (n=?)
Greatest Skull Length: 262.6mm for males (n=19); 237mm for females (n=4)
Zygomatic Width: 175.9mm for males (n=19); 160.2mm for females (n=4)
Total Score (Length + Width): 438.5mm for males (n=19); 397.2mm for females (n=4)
Upper Carnassial Tooth Length: 28.06mm for males (n=?); 26.55m for females (n=?)
Interorbital Breadth: 49.07mm for males (n=?); 44.25mm for females (n=?)
Length/Width Ratio: ~1.493 for males (n=19); ~1.479 for females (n=4)



Central American Jaguar:



Condylobasal Length: 223.14mm for males (n=?); 194.7mm for females (n=?)
Greatest Skull Length: 243.6mm for males (n=7); 215.2mm for females (n=4)
Zygomatic Width: 166.4mm for males (n=7); 148.7mm for females (n=4)
Total Score (Length + Width): 410mm for males (n=7); 364mm for females (n=4)
Upper Carnassial Tooth Length: 26.56mm for males (n=?); 24.82mm for females (n=?)
Interorbital Breadth: 54.73mm for males (n=?); 57.39mm for females (n=?)
Length/Width Ratio: ~1.464 for males (n=7); ~1.447 for females (n=4)








Personal Remarks:


Unsurprisingly the Pantanal jaguars stand out among the other three populations due to the huge size of their skulls in both length & width as well as the size of their upper carnassial teeth. The Llanos jaguars take a good 2nd place although you can see that the sample size is only about half as big and the tendency of the direction with added individuals can only be estimated. 

What made me curious is the interorbital breadth of the four populations as the absolute biggest measurements were attained by the female Central American jaguars who probably weigh just above 40kg and are thus much smaller than the huge Llanos/Pantanal males; maybe someone of the veteran users wants to give their take on that matter.

The last thing which turned out to be very unexpected were the results of the length/width ratios (greatest length/zygomatic width in this case); the Central American jaguars stand out in this case as a smaller ratio means a proportionally wider skull relative to its length. The jaguars of the Pantanal region would inherit the last place taking this characteristic into account, very interesting indeed (although I have to say that the differences are very marginal). According to these statistics the ultimate jaguar skull might just be a hybrid version of the Central American/Pantanal populations (proportionally ofc).

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