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Modern Weights and Measurements of Jaguars
Modern Weights and Measurements of Jaguars
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Modern Weights and Measurements of Jaguars
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 (06-05-2023, 09:58 PM)ravager Wrote: @Balam thank you for your answer, this was the 155kg male I was talking about This is my first time seeing this correspondence! Do you know who initially posted that conversation? Onçafari may be referring to Joker in this instance as I don't know of any other jaguar captured by them over 140 kg just yet. Some things to keep in mind about Joker based on his measurements and weight that I will remind of here: Joker showed a partial weight of 140 kg on an analog scale because he couldn't be fully lifted up, so his total weight was greater than that but is unclear by how much. Perhaps Onçafari did some kind of regression equation based on his measurements to arrive at that 155 kg value? Assuming this is the same male of course. It's also important to remember that his partial weight is recorded in our database, so that would decrease the overall average. Based on the body measurements registered by Joker, he would've been in the lower end of an adult male lion/tiger or an extremely large female of those species. I have already made a post about this before but since I'm posting here again let me go in-depth on this and at the same time clear some confusions I saw from a conversation about this on the previous page: Here we have the measurements chart of Joker and Shaka alongside two lions and a leopard from Namibia:  *This image is copyright of its original author Here we have the measurements of Bengal tigers from northern India based on the Cooh Behar records of 1908 collected by Guate Gojira:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author As for the data from Hewett, perhaps Peter could you confirm if those records were taken following the curves of the body, and do you have by any chance the HBL measurements? Total body length would yield inaccurate results for comparison purposes since tigers have proportionally longer tails than jaguars. Here is Guate's compilation:  *This image is copyright of its original author My analysis: To my knowledge, the protocol used for the measuring of Joker and Shaka employed by Onçafari is to follow the lines of the body from the tip of the nose to the tip of the tail. This is the standard "over curves" protocol so often discussed here and also used by some specimens from Cooch Behar and by most other institutions with differences here and there on how the tape is placed over the body. By contrast, the two lions and leopards from the ALPRU protocol table had their measurements taken from the incisors to the tip of the tail, in addition to also following the curves of the body, which would make those measurements artificially inflated in comparison to other "over curve" measurements. It's hard to know how many cms this adds but my estimate would be somewhere in between 5-12 cms. If we use 8 cm of extra length to be conservative as to how much to deduct, we get the following conclusions:
If the 155 kg specimen Onçafari is referring to is a total weight estimate for Joker, then I think the body measurements for him speak for themselves and make it a reasonable, dare I say conservative, estimate. In regard to your question about the table. Yes, it is constantly updated, that is why we uploaded it to Google Sheets. 
BALAM
Interesting post! As to the question. Over the years, I posted many, original, tables with detailed information about the dimensions and weights of wild tigers shot in the northern and northeastern part of what used to be British India in the tiger extinction thread. Some tables are based on 'Thirty-seven years of big game shooting in Cooch Behar, the Duars, and Assam. A rough diary' (the Maharajah of Cooch Behar, 1908) and 'Jungle trails in northern India' (Sir John Hewett, 1938). These are the tables you need. The tiger extinction thread is a long one. Most unfortunately, I'm unable to tell you where you can find the tables I referred to. I do, however, remember I was working on the tables in late 2015 and early 2016. It's quite likely I posted them in that period as well. As to the method used to measure tigers in that period of time. In northern and northeastern India, in contrast to central parts of India, tigers were measured 'over curves'. The problem with this method is it can be applied in different ways. In northeastern India, 10 males were measured both 'between pegs' and 'over curves'. The average difference between both methods was 5,5 inches. In northern India, the difference was less outspoken. The reason was the method was applied in a slightly different way. Hewett and a few experienced hunters and forest rangers concluded the difference between both methods in adult tigers and tigresses was 2-5 inches. Lengthwise, tigers shot 100-150 years ago in Cooch Behar, the Duars and Assam more or less compared to tigers shot in the Central Provinces. Adult males in both regions averaged 9.2-9.4 in total length measured 'between pegs'. Tigers shot in northeastern India, however, were a bit heavier. They also seemed to have a slightly longer skull. Tigers shot in northern part of what used to be British India were longer, but not as heavy as those shot in northeastern India. At least, that's the conclusion when you only consider the information provided. When you have a second look, however, you'll quickly conclude Hewett was unable to weigh most large tigers he and his friends shot. This was not the case in northeastern India. Using the information he offered (referring to Hewett), I concluded adult males shot in that part of India weightwise (well) exceeded those shot in northeastern India. In that period of time, tigers in Nepal most probably topped the table. The main reason was conservation. Assuming there wasn't much to choose between tigers in northern India and Nepal, the conclusion was hunting pressure resulted in a loss of about 4 inches and 40-50 pounds in adult males. Roughly half a century later, in the seventies of the previous century, this conclusion was more or less confirmed by Sunquist, although it has to be added his sample was very small. As to jaguar skulls. Over the years, I measured a few dozen jaguar skulls, meaby a bit more. Most skulls were from wild jaguars. Compared to skulls of lions and tigers, they seemed to be intermediate in most respects. Most posters (referring to different forums) think they're closer to tiger skulls, but this is not the case. In the end, it could depend on the angle you select. About a decade ago, I was invited by a private collector, a biologist. After measuring and studying the skulls for a number of days, we got to a similar conclusion. Sizewise (referring to greatest total length, zygomatic width and weight), skulls of large adult male jaguars compare to skulls of average-sized adult lionesses and tigresses. They're different from skulls of large male leopards in that they're more elevated at the orbit and significantly heavier. Skulls of leopards, by the way, are closer to lion skulls than to tiger skulls. All in all, using skulls as the main criterium, I'd say leopards and jaguars seem to be closer to lions than to tigers. Tigers are different. I've talked to hunters and those involved in capturing wild jaguars in Surinam. Although smaller than in Venezuela and the Pantanal at the level of averages, jaguars in the Guyanas and Surinam can grow to a large size. The prints of the one on a river island I saw were large and the depth of his prints stongly suggest he was heavier than an average man. In Surinam, they were treated with a lot of respect. The skeleton of a wild male I saw in the former Zoological Museum of Amsterdam was large and robust in all respects. The longest skulls ranged between 275-290 mm in greatest total length. One of them slightly exceeded 200 mm in zygomatic width. Some decades ago, I interviewed a number of big cat trainers. One of them had a melanistic male jaguar. He said he was interested in an interview, but added it depended on the circumsatnces. Meaning the jaguar. On the day we had agreed on, the trainer and the jaguar had been discussing a few issues. The trainer was wasted, but we did have a chat. I quickly noticed the jaguar, dense and powerful, was done with the trainer. The trainer took the warning serious, meaning he had decided to quit training completely. Good decision, I said when I left. I heard similar stories of other trainers. The biologists I referred to above had good contacts with zoo directors all over Europe. They told him jaguars were considered more dangerous than other big cats. Some animals are not to be trained and the jaguar could be one of them. The jaguar I 'met' on a river island in Surinam, however, was outgoing, polite and respectful.
@peter thanks for the remarks on the captive jaguars, this is going to be a very long post based on all the points you brought forward and I think that this conversation can help us get a better idea of the relationship between size and environment not just in jaguars but also big cats for those interested in that topic.
I've heard from other people that historically jaguars have been avoided in circuses precisely because they are much harder to "tame" and follow orders than the other big cats, that's why we see so few of them in circus acts. Interestingly, jaguars can be rather calm and gentle in captivity with people that they trust. They are almost goofy-looking and my theory is that while they cannot be told what to do, they will allow those whom they have developed a bond with to be by their side. The captive male from Florida I mentioned Ravager a few replies back seemed really comfortable with human contact. He is also the one non-obese captive specimen that I have the correspondence of at 158 kg. I made this comparison of said jaguar next to Joker to see how well they compared in dimensions, the photo was provided by my friend and fellow jaguar enthusiast Litchsoldat on Jaguarland as he knew the lady in the picture who was the one who provided the photo, and information to him. Needless to say, I'm convinced Joker is in his weight class:  *This image is copyright of its original author I will try to look for the tables you mentioned on the EOE thread when I have the time. For now, I think the data from Cooch Behar posted by Guate sufficed to do some really good analyses on the body proportions of a record-sized jaguar and how well he fared next record-size tigresses and modest-sized male tigers. And Joker is undoubtedly in that size class while Shaka is closer to the size class of an average tigress in weight and body proportions. Going back to captive specimens, recently I came across this huge melanistic pair from what looks like a roadside zoo, likely in the US. They are overweight in a similar manner to what we see in other captive cats that lack proper exercise but their skeletal frame (shoulder height and length) are what caught my attention. They look huge next to the keeper:  *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 Another, somewhat obese, but very famous jaguar with tens of millions of views is "Tank" from the SingleVision holding facility, also in Florida. This jaguar is held with his partner Binta the lioness who is the same age. She is obviously taller than him at the shoulder but he seems to match her rather well in body length and skull size. They are both 3-year-old subadults: He is often seen interacting with care with Binta and their keeper, suggesting a very deep bond between them. Your points about jaguars from the Guyanas are interesting, and I think the reason why your conclusions based on their sizes have validity is due to the location. A lot of people think of Amazonian jaguars as a monolith when this could not be further from the case. The Amazon basin is a gigantic area that encompasses many eco-regions, and biomes and that nowadays has different degrees of degradation. Based on the data we have collected from Hoogesteijn and Mondolfi, the heaviest jaguars they were able to study from the Amazon basin came from areas in the peripheries of the rainforest in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Brazil, which border wetland areas. In wetlands, you tend to find much higher concentrations of prey in the form of caimans, capybaras, deer, and peccaries. In the deep rainforest, the numbers of these animals, with the exception of peccaries, is greatly reduced so the diets of jaguars there tend to be more varied and consist of smaller vertebrates like birds and armadillos. As a result, they have to dwarf in size to survive with lesser resources. The case of Mamirauá in Brazil is particularly fascinating to me as I have been doing a lot of research with some colleagues in that area and with the help of biologists in the field we've been able to gather all the scientific weight data for that population in the Amazon tab of our data set, here's what we have so far:  *This image is copyright of its original author This population is fascinating because during the monsoon season, the forest ground becomes completely flooded and the jaguars have adapted to this change by moving exclusively to the canopy. Jaguars spend months on end living on the trees, mating, giving birth, and hunting. Their main prey in this area are howler monkeys during the wet season, and caimans supplement their diets in dryer months. One of the field biologists we spoke with stated that the physical state of some of the jaguars he captured was not optimal. They were almost frail because they did not have much food to eat (I would assume relying on monkeys and birds for long periods of time is not ideal for a big cat), so naturally, the cats are forced to dwarf in size to sustain themselves with fewer resources but also to have an appropriate size to live in the forest canopy. In Guyana and Suriname, there are quite a few wetland areas that can foster larger jaguars, but it's not the only area of the Amazon like this. While Brazil has done some amazing work capturing and studying jaguars from the Pantanal, I would like to see more work being done for jaguars in the country's portion of the Amazon as beside Mamirauá and the island of Amapá (which also harbors a dwarfed small population), there is partially no tracking of jaguars. There are areas like Sinop and Xingu that have some seriously big specimens roaming, and this is all thanks to the better-preserved rainforest with high prey densities (mainly large herds of while-lipped peccary). Here are some specimens from said areas: The last melanistic male comes from Xingu, this is the same area where two huge and robust females were sourced for rewilding project in Iberá: The juvenile female offspring of Juruna can be seen here at less than a year old at the time free in Iberá. Absolutely dense and robust female cubs, the result of good genes and ample prey base (Iberá has a higher percentage of capybara and feral hogs per km2 than then Pantanal), it will be fascinating to see how this population develops as it grows but that's another topic:  *This image is copyright of its original author Lastly, in regard to the skull. I think I disagree with you on the conclusion of the affinity between jaguars and lions as opposed to tigers. I obviously don't have nearly as much hands-on experience dealing with and measuring big cat skulls so my opinions are based mostly on pictures and measurements, but it seems to me that jaguars differ quite broadly from lions and are closer to tigers in their rather stout but wide skulls, as opposed to the more oval-shaped skulls seen in lions and leopards. This doesn't mean that tiger and jaguar skulls are identical. From what I've seen, tigers tend to have a more concave skull at the top whereas jaguars have a more convex skull with a particularly protruded forehead. My belief is that the kinship in morphology between jaguars and tigers in the result of parallel evolution where both species have fulfilled practically identical niches and living conditions in most forested and wetland habitats, despite the phylogeny of the jaguar being closer to that of lions and leopards. In terms of size, I would like to see more recent data from jaguar skulls. We have tons of weight data but none published on the former. For example, the skull of the record jaguar female Troncha (110 kg) is currently being held by Onçafari, or the skull of the 130 kg male jaguar Sandro is currently being held by Reprocon. The data from Hoogesteijn and Mondolfi for the Pantanal also combined a few specimens from the Chaco where they are slightly smaller (although historically likely matched the size of those in the Pantanal), so that likely reduced the overall average. I think without the Chaco specimens the GSL for the population would've been closer to 300 mm and 200 mm for the ZGW. The data from Almeida also shows that his jaguars with the biggest skulls reached the lower end in size of the lion skulls recorded by Smuts from what I can recall. This is despite the fact that his jaguars were much lighter in weight. A good friend and mentor of mine who works at a very important museum shared with me a photo of the frontal part of a broken Pantanal jaguar skull next to a male African lion and the jaguar almost perfectly matched it in the rostrum. Sadly I don't have permission to share this picture. Nowadays I expect a mature male Pantanal jaguar (110+ kg) to have a skull well within the 300+ mm threshold more often than not in GSL, but obviously I can't confirm this until we get enough statistically sufficient data to back up my hypothesis.  (06-07-2023, 08:03 AM)Balam Wrote: @peter thanks for the remarks on the captive jaguars, this is going to be a very long post based on all the points you brought forward and I think that this conversation can help us get a better idea of the relationship between size and environment not just in jaguars but also big cats for those interested in that topic.The zoo with black jaguars is Oaklawn farm zoo, Canada. The zoo also had a male lion who was weighed in at 800 lbs and he looked overweight. Here is the same lady with Rutledge  *This image is copyright of its original author
@Hello amazing, thanks for the name, I was looking for it.
The two melanistic brothers were named Phantom and Fury:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author They are described as "South American" jaguars. The enclosure next to them was shared by two tigers both described as "Siberian". Czar the white male, and Zarina the female. Here they are next to the jaguars. Czar:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author Zarina:  *This image is copyright of its original author Indeed, they all looked overweight. In terms of frame, I'm amazed at how well the jaguars measured up, those were not small tigers. Official and scientific updated data for jaguar weights from Porto Jofre:
This a sneak peak of the weight data that will be publicized on the latest release of the Jaguar ID Project guide. This data was given by Fernado Tortato and Ronaldo Morato of Panthera to Abigail Martin:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author IMPORTANT COMMENTS TO KEEP IN MIND:
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author Credits: Rhoda Perkins-Boyer  (06-10-2023, 07:02 PM)Balam Wrote: amazing amount of information. Nice post as usually. Is Ousado, M61 & Gaucho considered small/skinny Jaguars? I'll try to find some pictures of them. If its possible i would like if u send some here! I appreciate that (06-10-2023, 11:40 PM)Ngonya Wrote:(06-10-2023, 07:02 PM)Balam Wrote: Correct, Ousado was captured in dire condition after he was found with burnt paws during the devastating fires of the 2020 season: http://www.ecns.cn/hd/2020-09-24/detail-...4336.shtml He is now older and healthier so undoubtedly he will weigh more than that 75 kg value, but as of now we only have the sick weight to register. Here are more recent photos of him from 2021 following his release into the wild looking much healthier and stronger:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
@ravager yes, the table contains many sub-adults and sick specimens, that's why I refer to them as averaging 110+ kg when counting only healthy specimens over 4 years of age.
The table has all the data publicized for jaguars in the scientific reserach in recent times alongside first-hand unpublished data given by biologists in the field (not all the data they gather makes it to papers because gathering averages is not something they care about), the claim that "most modern studies place them at 100 kg" is a lie spread by a couple of people with an agenda from another forum with no proper moderation. Some studies will fluctuate the average higher and lower depending on the sample used of specimens, but when you combine all the recent, scientific data you get the result that I did.   (06-03-2023, 02:32 AM)Balam Wrote: That specimen has as original source jaguar hunter Sasha Siemel. That jaguar nicknamed "Assesino" was killed by Siemel in the 20th century and was, according to him, the largest jaguar he had ever seen. This jaguar was never weighed but he estimated him to have been at least 350 lbs. There are no photos of the animal and the skull was sold off by his family years later, so no records were kept either unfortunately. Actually, there are pictures of this jaguar:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author I can't say if this animal was actually weighed or not, Sasha said it was, but based on the picture this animal was fully gorged, so definitelly weighed less than 158 kg/350 lb. My two cents for today. |
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