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

[GuateGojira]

The list of the heaviest jaguars
There are only a few studies about the jaguars in America. Most of them are from El Pantanal (Brazil) and Los Llanos (Venezuela). The few records of other areas show smaller specimens and the samples are very small to.
 
In order the give a backup to my list of heaviest jaguars on scientific records, I will put all the data on them. From the 10 record specimens, five came from Sunquist & Sunquist (2002) and the others came from other firsthand sources. In the case of the Venezuelan jaguar of 121 kg, the Pantanal male of 119 kg and the Belize male of 66 kg, I have the original sources, but as Sunquist quote them correctly, I will just quote him instead of three different images (now, if someone wants the original images, I will post them gladly).
 

1. 148 kg. Pantanal, South of Brazil (Cavalcanti, Pers. Comm., 2012).
   

Originally, this record came from a video, here is the link:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla...YUGIYdsZC8
The male looks not gorged, although with a little stomach content (138 kg empty?) When I track the source, I emailed to Dr Sandra Cavalcanti and here is her answer:

*This image is copyright of its original author

So, this male was indeed of 148 kg and constitutes a real scientific record.
 

1. 130 kg. Porto Primavera, South of Brazil (Morato et al., 2001).
   

Here is the image of the document:

*This image is copyright of its original author

 
Here is the link of the document, in Spanish:
http://www.procarnivoros.org.br/pdfs/05...._alpdf.pdf
 
Dr Peter Crawshaw Jr. Corroborate to me that this male came from Proto Primavera and even send me some body measurements of the specimen during its first capture. All these specimens have feed at least 24 hours before its capture.
 

1. 104 kg. Emas NP, Center of Brazil. (Jaguar Conservation Fund, 2009).
   

Here are the sources:
http://www.jaguar.org.br/en/media/photos...index.html
http://www.black-jaguar.org/page/277/Jaguar-news
 
The picture of the specimen:

*This image is copyright of its original author

 
Just a correction, the male was captured in 2009, not in 2004. These sources corroborate the correct date.
 
Now I have found another large male, also from Emas NP that weighed 105 kg, here is the link of the document:
http://www.scielo.br/pdf/gmb/v29n4/32128.pdf
 
So, the correct record for Emas NP in Brazil most be like this:
* 105 kg. Emas NP, Center of Brazil. (Soares et al., 2006).
 
Check that this male was older in date than the previous one. This is what I have told to Chui, in any day, a “new” record could rise and change this full list.
 

1. 63.6 kg. Texas, USA. (Schmidly & Davis, 2004).
   

Here is the image of the book:

*This image is copyright of its original author

 
Although the source states a top figure of 90 kg, it sounds like an estimation. The sample is very small, but at least suggestive.
 

1. 53.5 kg. Arizona, USA. (Arizona Game and Fish Department, 2009).
   

Here is the source:
http://www.azgfd.net/wildlife/conservati...009/02/20/
At least, in this case, the record is somewhat unreliable as this is the only male weighed in the area and is not other records from for comparison.
 

1. 121 kg. Los Llanos, Venezuela. (Hoogesteijn & Mondolfi, 1993; original).
2. 119 kg. Pantanal, South of Brazil. (De Almeida, 1993; original).
3. 96 kg. Amazon. (Sunquist & Sunquist, 2002; second hand).
4. 66 kg. Belize, Central America. (Rabinowitz & Nottingham, 1996; original).
5. 37 kg. Peru. (Hoogesteijn & Mondolfi, 1996; Sunquist & Sunquist, 2002; both second hand sources).
   

Heres is the image that contains all this 5 records:

*This image is copyright of its original author

 
This are the sources that I used for the list, however, there are other records from Venezuela and Brazil, but has not been corroborated or had they stomach full of beef.
 
This account is very interesting:
 
“While jaguars in some parts of the country, such as Amazonas or the basin of the Caura River, seem to be rather small, with the usual male weight not exceeding 80kg, several reports from regions such as Los Llanos describe the hunting of extremely large jaguars (Hoogesteijn and Mondolfi, 1996; authors’ unpublished data). According to reports of workers at Hato Piñero, one jaguar male killed there weighed 159kg and another, recently killed in the vicinity, weighed 130kg. Accordingly to a worker at Hato Socorro, a jaguar killed on the border of Cojedes and Portuguesa states weighed 180kg. Large jaguars are also believed to live in the area of Lake Maracaibo. Although these reports cannot be verified, it seems that in parts of Venezuela where jaguars prey on cattle, their body mass is generally higher.”
 
Source: http://www.google.com.gt/url?sa=t&rct=j&...Bk6A9iUzPQ
 
These figures show claims of the same weight than those reported by Sasha Siemel in El Pantanal. However, I can’t believe in a jaguar of 180 kg, it is too extreme and would need verification.
 
Apart from this data, there is the sample showed here by peter from Paraguay, there the heaviest male weighed 106 kg. Surprisely, the heaviest puma of the same location weighed 108 kg. Now we will need to read the original document to see if these specimens were baited, gorged or empty belly.
Source: http://www.conservationforce.org/conserv..._FINAL.pdf
 
From a sample of 5 specimens (two males only) captured in Hato Piñero, Venezuela, the heaviest was of 93 kg. However, something in the body measurements don’t seems right. Well, here is the document:
Source: http://www.jaguarnetwork.org/pdf/44.pdf
 

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