Jaguars of Brazil - Dynamics,Lifestyle,Datas,Studies,Reports

[Balam]

Edu Fragoso had a chat today where he discussed the data on ecology Onçafari has gathered throughout the years and some really interesting insight was shared.
As discussed previously by me, jaguars are not solitary cats. Here's a map showing the spatial overlapping of jaguars of both sexes throughout Caiman:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Further, Edu showed how big carcasses that supply large amounts of food (e.g. cattle, horses), allow for jaguars who oftentimes are unrelated to share the same carcass without a problem. So much so that one time he witnessed 5 different unrelated males at one carcass at the time and two females, so 7 jaguars in total in one single area. No other cat other than lions congregate together in this way (albeit I've shared before footage of cougars in Patagonia congregating very similarly around a kill before, see the South American cougar thread), though it is more common to see related jaguars who come from one specific mother lineage sharing kills and interacting with each other:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

The high amount of prey availability in the Pantanal likely allows these jaguars to increase their level of tolerance for each other in ways that would not be possible in less prey-dense areas such as the Cerrado where IOP data shows a lesser degree of spatial overlap.

One interesting phenomenon witnessed by the Onçafari team involved the long clusters of time that Natureza would spend in one area. This proved to be her nesting place when she had her cubs Felino and Felina, and the most interesting thing is that the team was obvious of Felino's existence for weeks because Natureza created two dens where she kept her two cubs separated, probably wanting to lower the risk of losing both of them at the same time when they were young.

In terms of intraspecific aggression, these were the number of fights that have been able to register at Caiman, surprisingly females fought 4 times more often with each other than males did between them. In 100% of times females fought with each other the presence of cubs was registered (see Fera vs Gatuna and her cub Vitor), which likely suggests a level of high protection when their cubs are in the presence of an unrelated adult:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Here's a register of Nusa showing her dominance over the smaller female Isa. Isa wandered off her territory into Nusa's who at the time had Juju as a cub, in order to avoid a full-on battle Nusa opted for "flexing" her size in front of Isa to let her know she was the boss in the area and to keep her distance:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

In the case of malo-to-male fights, in 100% of the cases females were present in the area, meaning that the fights between them are triggered by the access to females in contrast to females fighting to protect their cubs.

Prey preferences of jaguars at Caiman (free-roaming animals only), unsurprisingly caiman was overwhelmingly selected, feral hog was selected over collared peccary and cervids:

*This image is copyright of its original author

There was much more information shared but these were the highlights for me. The full webinar can be accessed here:

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