Comparing Cats: A Discussion of Similarities & Differences

[Dark Jaguar]

About the Puma and Jaguar in the same areas, sizes and interactions.

In Brazil the smallest difference in size for both species happens in Caatinga where jaguars are the smallest in size.

The Amazonic jaguars from Mamirauá reserve are small too but they're larger than the Caatinga jaguars.


There are a few infos of Jaguars and Pumas coexistence in the Jaguars of Brazil thread, in Atlantic Forest area of Iguaçú - South Brazil Pumas and Jaguars can be seen in the same territories but on different times of the day and night within that specific area.

IN THE BRAZILIAN ATLANTIC FOREST.

from the Bafo de Onça live.

Vânia from the Onças do Iguaçú project: ''both species use the same area but with Atlantic forest Jaguars and Ocelots  being more nocturnal active cats in Iguaçú whereas Pumas are also nocturnal but they were active much more on daytime than jaguars so maybe the utilization of the area at different times help the existence of both species.''


IN PANTANAL.

In the Pantanal basin wise there's a post I dropped some months ago in the Jaguars of Brazil thread of Onçafari live ''Onçatalks''and according to their monitoring and to what Joares May said in Pantanal Pumas will also avoid direct encounters with jaguars and will seek smaller preys.

Joares May: ''The Onçafari team are on the field monitoring the area to figure out the places where it spots more Pumas and the ones that spots more jaguars, and from what we've seen in the areas where jaguars are seen the most the Pumas will either not show up around there or they will show up there only every once in a while during the day so both species are in the same region but in different times and its very clear in those places where in the range area of the jaguar you won't see Pumas around because the Puma won't be able to compete with this big predator.''

''So the jaguar ends up dominating this area and we almost don't see an overlap but we already saw an area where a Jaguar was feeding on a kill and next to it there was a Puma preying on another animal.''

In the same onçafari live they were asked about jaguar predation on pumas and Joares May who travelled all over Brazil and the world he captured jaguars, maned wolves, pumas... he mentioned about a Puma carcass in Parque Nacional Grande Sertão Veredas ( Cerrado ) that was found and supposedly killed by a jaguar they checked the fighting place and the carcass had bite marks on the shoulders and paws so he imagined the Puma carcass was killed by jaguar, he also mentions he saw the result of a Puma and Jaguar fight and he says the result was Ugly.

also Pumas won't be seen very often in neither Porto Jofre (North section of Pantanal) nor in Mamirauá reserve (Central Amazon) because these two regions got high densities of jaguars with very high intraspecific competitions amongst jags. But just like in Iguaçú Pumas may very well ''show up'' during the times of the day/night when jaguars are less active in one specific place of those areas.

The area where wild Pumas and Jaguars are most equally sized is in Caatinga where both cats are found in serious critical endangered situations and where some Pumas could be the same size as jaguars or even slightly larger as Ronaldo Morato have stated in the live. In Caatinga is where you'll see the smallest wild jaguars than in any other biome but despite their small size they're yet proportionately very stocky cats which is expected from the most robust cat pound for pound.

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credits: IOP and Bichos dos Pireneus

TOP: Cerrado male Puma ( from PNE )

BOTTOM: Cerrado male Jaguar ( from Serra dos Pireneus )

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

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