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An Oncafari biologist states that most of jaguars they study at Caiman Ecological Refuge (where the largest jaguars in the world are found, like Joker and Robusto), very rarely prey on cattle.
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(04-16-2022, 06:27 PM)Twico5 Wrote: Pumas in Patagonia are eating cape hare
About this, read here : https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-cougar-...#pid141952 while European hares definitely make a bulk fo cougar diets in the Patagonia, they are usually hunted by youngsters and females, not adult males.
As you can see from that post adult males hunt primarily guanacos, rheas, and wild horses.
It is very rare for pumas to hunt wild horses. They are dangerous prey and guanacos/hares are a much more frequent prey item. Also, horse-killing pumas get huge. They’re the ones that get upwards of 100kg
“In 44 of those 147 sites we recorded hunting events. In 40 of these sites we found remains of guanacos and rheas, while in the remaining 4 we found remains of wild horses.“ Over the course of 2 years btw. 4 horses (most likely foals), over the course of 2 years, sample size = 1 male puma.
Jaguars in the pantanal also hunt horses btw. Certainly not comparable prey bases still.
Nowhere are pumas upwards of 100kg. You Are talking about an outlier when mentioning 100kg Puma.
I never said avg weight? As i said before pantanal jaguars have a better prey base than any cougar population. Every individual is large and well fed. However, a 90kg puma is not exceptional, there are usually 80-90kg pumas mentioned in every single study ive seen from argentinea and chile as well as nw states like idaho, montana, utah etc that includes weights. A 90kg puma is large yes but in areas where they have little competition and healthy prey bases why should there be any avg or 60 kilogram males?
Never did I say average either, you said "upwards of 100kg." Which is extremely rare for any Cougar.
90kg is also extremely rare for any Cougar, any cougar between 80-90kg will be in the upper tier.
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You'll notice that only one there even reached 80kgs.
Also, Pumas in Patagonia have just as large of of a prey base as Pantanal Jaguars.
Quote:Yes and horse-killing pumas usually tend to be larger. I was talking about Patagonian pumas specifically when I said their predation on wild horses was rare.
This is also an unfounded claim. Wild horses would be even more difficult than Guanaco, generally speaking the only Cats that could prey on adults would be large ones regardless.
Quote:Amazonian Jaguars vary in size. Most are large and here is their prey base:
The largest verified amazonian Jaguar was around 70kgs.
Quote:Now of course they don’t have 10 million caiman to prey on and nor do they have huge cattle herds grazing in their territories but they do have tons of reptilian prey. These are animals cougars don’t typically hunt.
Again, they must become sloth hunters for months out of the year and the terrain doesn't allow them to hunt that prey.
Quote:“Sloths”. Throughout most of the Amazon they’re preying on large reptiles
What exactly are these "large reptiles" you think they are preying on?
And there is no debate, sloths make up a high majority of Amazon Jaguars diet. Sloths also make up a large portion of the Jaguars diet in Costa Rica as well.
Prey abundance drives habitat occupancy by jaguars in Amazonian
floodplain river islands
Rafael M. Rabeloa,b,∗
, Susan Aragónc
, Júlio César Bicca-Marquesd
"Jaguars’ predominant terrestriality does not preclude them from
occurring in Amazonian seasonally flooded forests (herein várzea forests). This is the case at the Mamirauá Sustainable Development
Reserve – a protected area of várzea forests in Central Amazon – where
jaguars reach high densities probably because of high prey abundance
(Ramalho, 2012). The availability of arboreal (e.g., sloths and monkeys;
Rabelo et al., 2017) and water-associated (e.g., caimans and their eggs;
Ramalho, 2012; Torralvo et al., 2017) prey species allows jaguars to
reside yearlong in flooded forests, including the 4- to 6-month-long
high-water season (Ramalho et al., 2009; Ramalho, 2012)."
"Jaguar probability of site occupancy was positively influenced by
the abundance of both howlers and sloths (Table 1; Fig. 2a and b).
Although both estimates were not significant at HPD95 (i.e., the HPD95
interval included the zero), we found strong evidence that sloth and
howler abundances increase the probability of habitat occupancy by
jaguars [likelihood estimates: p (β1 > 0) = 0.93 and p
(β2 > 0) = 0.94, respectively]. We estimated a similar proportion of
island and continuous forest sites used by jaguars (ψ = 0.75, HPD95:
0.36–1.00, Fig. 2c). Additionally, we found that the abundances of both
sloths and howlers have similar effects on jaguar probability of occurrence " https://ppbio.inpa.gov.br/sites/default/...artigo.pdf
Quote:Nw Mexico isn’t the only place where they’re the same size. Peru:
Again we are talking about the Amazon and still Jaguars there will outsize the Puma, but it's not as exaggerated as it is in the Pantanal, Chaco, Cerrado, Los Llanos etc.
Quote:Pumas in Patagonia are eating cape hares
I will 100% guarantee you that Guanaco make up way more prey consumption than hare for any Cougar in Patagonia.
You need to understand a hare is 1/100th the size of a Guanaco and one Guanaco will substantially contribute far more to a Cougars diet than 20 hare but the hare's quantity will skew the results. The reason Patagonia is the only place on earth where you see numerous Cougars feeding on a single carcass isn't because of Hares, trust me.
This is also shown in the study with regards to the "prey consumed" table.
Quote:If they’re large here then it would only be because of the couple thousand guanacos here as opposed to the many reasons why pantanal Jaguars reach enourmous sizes. Millions of yacare caiman, 3000 cattle ranches in the region, 0 competition, everything else is also on the roster as prey vs puma population that has only 1 wild prey animal over 5kg. It’s true that Patagonian pumas are apex predators, but according to what you’ve been saying about Jaguars being dominant over pumas, jags would be dominant in every part of their range as well. But they’re small in many places. Guess what? Jaguars are apex predators in the cerrado as well, yet you decide to remind me that there are 140kg pantanal Jaguars! Why aren’t we comparing Amazon jag and Patagonian puma sizes? Both are apexes right? Why is it that one apex niche population is smaller than another apex niche population? I think it might have to do with the prey base that the pantanal has!
This excuse holds no water.
Guanaco numbers in Patagonia are between 100-200 thousand at least. There are also immense sheep farms which contribute to Cougar prey. And of course because of the density of prey you also have the highest cougar density on earth. And like the Pantanal Jaguars, these cougars have no competition.
Also, tell me again where Jaguars are small since you said "many places." And what does the Cerrado have to do with anything? You realize jaguars are also massive in the Cerrado, only slightly smaller than Pantanal ones. Lastly, I think I've explained the differences between the Amazon compared to elsewhere pretty well.
Quote:Several male pumas from this region weighing around 90 kilograms. Don’t most male Jaguars in the pantanal weigh around this much? Even then pantanal Jaguars have a much better prey base. Some of these pumas mainly killed and ate livestock. Jaguars in the pantanal eat everything in their territory and the abundance of livestock as well as their own favored wild prey is much higher. It would be foolish to believe that 100 kilograms is the max weight for male pumas btw. There have been many records from scientific literature of male pumas weighing upwards of 100kg, if you’d like I can post some of them.
There is a difference between Per. Comm and actually weighed first hand. And once again, the average male jaguar in the pantanal is 108 kgs which is significantly heavier than any cougar population and heavier than almost any cougar ever weighed. There is one claimed to have been close to 110kg in Patagonia but not confirmed.
Just scroll through here https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-modern-...ld-cougars
You'll quickly see that verified 100kg Cougars are extremely lacking on top of how rare a 90kg Cougar is. They're much like Leopards, 70-80kg is a good sized male, 90kg is exceptional and 100kg is extremely rare.
What are you talking about? Adult guanaco arent free kills for pumas. And if you think that they are killing adult guanaco for every single meal youre mistaken.
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23% guanaco, 50% cape hare, 5% sheep. 405 scats not a single horse. A very small percentage of pumas may have access to domestic prey, but most of them are clearly hunting wild prey and that too struggling to do so. In torres del paine NP there is almost no cover for these pumas to stalk their prey. If they manage to somehow catch a large guanaco they would then have to overpower it which doesnt always happen: https://youtu.be/eIt0ub7PhWY Idk if you saw the new netflix documentary but in the patagonia episode theres a clip of a female puma failing to overpower a large guanaco after grabbing its neck > falling down > getting back up and trying again 3 times. How often do you really think a puma is going to successfully kill and eat an adult guanaco? Once or twice a week at most. They are obviously capable of doing so including young and female pumas but because of all the factors that make hunting so difficult in patagonia we know that this doesnt happen often. The favored prey of male pumas are most definitely large adult guanacos. Given how hard it is to stalk in an area with no cover, outrun then overpower an animal 2-3 times your size, and repeat until you get large, ofc as a population they arent exceptionally sized like pantanal jags are to other populations.
You said the largest amazonian jag weighed 70kg. First of all im 100% sure this is a contradiction to everything youve said about these jags in CF. Secondly, in most parts of the brazillian amazon adult male jags weigh 70kg on avg because not every region floods. You’re thinking of the japura river jags which live in forests that get seasonal floods.
Patagonia cannot be compared to cerrado obviously. Cerrado is closer to pantanal in terms of wild prey and domestic prey abundance. It is home to several terrestrial mammal species above 50kg while patagonia only has one.
Those weights i posted were from pampas, not patagonia. I never brought up patagonian pumas actually. Here are some extra weights anyways:
(04-16-2022, 12:56 PM)Hello Wrote: I think everyone in general including me knew that height of 120 cm from google and almost every site, reality is that 120 cm is over curves, rather than standing height. The tallest lion, standing height up to shoulders is at 114 cm, while an average lion is a slightly above a meter tall at shoulders, while standing. I believe there are also lion reaching 120 cm, but exceptions like Angus MacAskill (largest non pathological human?) or someone with gigantism (hormonal issue)).
Actually no, 120 cm (or now 130 cm) for Smilodon populator is stainding height.
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The figure that is incorrect is the often quoted height for the lion. No wild lion, ever, had a height like that. The maximum is 114 cm or probably a little less in the real maximum standing height.
Exceptional captive animals are exceptions and we can ignore them.
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Several male pumas from this region weighing around 90 kilograms. Don’t most male Jaguars in the pantanal weigh around this much? Even then pantanal Jaguars have a much better prey base. Some of these pumas mainly killed and ate livestock. Jaguars in the pantanal eat everything in their territory and the abundance of livestock as well as their own favored wild prey is much higher. It would be foolish to believe that 100 kilograms is the max weight for male pumas btw. There have been many records from scientific literature of male pumas weighing upwards of 100kg, if you’d like I can post some of them.
Thank you for showing that what is EXCEPTIONAL for a puma, is just average for the jaguar.
107 kg for the largest puma population is average for the largest jaguar population. Period.
(04-17-2022, 02:54 AM)Twico5 Wrote: Not even close. Male jag and male cougar from the same region:
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This photo was posted before but the person who posted it i believe claimed the jaguar was a female. Except in another frame you can see the its genatalia. Big male jaguar and male cougar (definitely not close to every other male cougar ive seen from this region).
The jag in the first image i posted is a big male, an above avg sized individual
If after seeing this image you still believe that jaguars are of the same size (body mass) than jaguars then you are blind.
Check the massive frame of the jaguar, pumas may be as tall and long but are much more slender, not even close to the might of the Panthera cat.
(04-17-2022, 04:30 AM)Mwarcaar Wrote: That is NOT how science works. If that will be true, how do you think that paleontologists recontruct the extint animals? Check Giganotosaurus and Spinosaurus, just to mention a few famous ones, they are know from few fossils but using relatives they manage to reconstruct they sizes. The same is with many, many, many prehistoric specimens"
the spinosaurus is the perfect example of why estimates and reconstructions should be taken with skepticism. look how the weight, size and appearance of this animal have changed over the course of discoveries and it is not about to stop until we find a complete skeleton and even if we find one there is will always have debates about his weight and appearance. and that would be totally understandable because that's how science works
"With Pleistocene animals, like Smilodon, is more easier to calculate the sizes thanks to the complete or semi-complete specimens that we have. Again, like I said, a simple escalation can be done and we can get the size of incomplete specimens.
Weights are going to be always estimations, because we can't weigh an extint animal, but with time those estimations are more reliable with more studies done. At the moment, "up to 400 kg" or a little more is the most reliable for Smilodon populator."
no it is not easier to estimate the weight of the smilodon populator since there is no modern equivalent. it is already difficult to do for panthera spelaea and atrox which we have an extremely close modern equivalent, namely the lion.
weight estimates will never be reliable, 400 kg for the smilodon populator is only one estimate among others
You don't even got my point. Like I said, with the new studies we got the better our understanding of unknown animals, like Spinosaurus, but for known animals like Smilodon, which we have several specimens is a lot easier to extrapolate, wich is the fact that you try to deny.
Also, you don't even read correctly what I put, I said "SIZE" not "WEIGHT", read again, I said "with Pleistocene animals, like Smilodon, is more easier to calculate the sizes thanks to the complete or semi-complete specimens that we have. Again, like I said, a simple escalation can be done and we can get the size of incomplete specimens". Now you get it?
Of course that body mass is dificult, but we are NOT talking about body mass here, we are talking about size, height and length, don't you? And that is why I mentioned the weight here, like an example, but now that you mention the Panthera atrox and Panthera spelaea, so based in your logic, the giant cave cat with a skull of nearly 490 mm is not bigger than the averge sized complete skeleton from Mosbach which is marginally larger than a modern lion/tiger with a skull of c.410 mm, correct?
So according with you NO animal can be escalated based in relatives or specimens from its own species because is fals, fake, unreliable, or whatever word you can use? So we can use only the "complete" skeletons to know the size and any other smaller or larger animal is unreliable and imposible to know its size?
(04-19-2022, 12:23 AM)LonePredator Wrote: What is the biggest prey for a Jaguar other than a Tapir? And what is the largest aquatic prey for Jaguars? Do they hunt large sea turtles?
In the habitat of the jaguar, only the tapir is bigger than him and they live at a low density, the deers are about the same size than jaguar but that is all, wild pigs like pecari and any other wild prey is smaller than the jaguar.
And that is why the document of Hayward et al. (2016) is so interesting because they discuss this dilema, that a large Panthera cat that evolved to kill large prey, now it needs to live on smaller prey and managed to adapt to it very good.
If jaguars had the same wild prey size and density that pumas had in US and Canada (deers of over 200 kg) they will not weigh the 90-100 kg that a puma (if lucky) may reach, but certainly will be a little bigger than the Pantanal jaguars, because they are adapted for that and in the past they weighed over 200 kg during the Pleistocene (P. o. augusta and P. o. messembrina) when the large preys existed in they habitat.
(04-16-2022, 08:30 AM)Twico5 Wrote: That chart includes mammalian prey only. It literally says that reptiles make up 54% of jaguar diets in the screenshot you posted. Also what? Florida panthers are smaller than belizean jaguars? Obviously not true. Yes, they do have a better prey base, but for some reason theyre still small, just not smaller than belizean jaguars. They are heavier, taller and longer and if youd like i can show proof of this
“in order to have similar body masses, jaguars need to have a lower prey base and small size than pumas”. So then howcome when they have the same prey base they look like this? It seems as if jaguars dont need smaller prey bases to be larger but instead specific reptillian prey species in order to be puma sized or larger! Two adult females from nw mexico btw:
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I see that you don't even understood what I told you.
First of all, you don't even read the image that I post, so here it is again:
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You can clearly see that they DID include reptiles, not just mammals as you claim. In fact, take the time to read the image as it self explanatory, check that the reptiles importance drop to 0.9%, read the full document (Prey Preferences of the Jaguar Panthera onca Reflect the Post-Pleistocene Demise of Large Prey - Hayward et al, 2016).
You don't even understood the example of the Florida panthers and the Belize jaguars. Again, the jaguars in Belize had lower prey base while the pumas from Florida had a better prey base and larger prey animals, the point is to show that only when the prey is low then the jaguar is going to be of the same average size than a puma population, but when both species had the same prey base, jaguars are definitelly going to be heavier. You claim to show proof, but you forget that the same images that I showed previously shows that pumas is Florida are bigger than jaguars in Belize, but the problem is that you are completelly ignoring the context of this phenomenon, which is directly related with prey base. There is your error in your analogy.
You insist with the reptiles as principal prey base, but that is completelly incorrect, and the previous study shows your error. By the way, in the images you say that you show "adult" females from New Mexico, well you should remember that jaguars are animals that need water and that dry habitat is not the best for them, while pumas are better adapter to drier climates. By the way, can you show that those animals, specially the jaguar, is really an adult?
No sir the 1st image you posted has 0 reptiles listed in it. The 1st image has crab-eating foxes and agoutis but no yacare caiman yeah ok buddy.
I never said jags preyed on reptiles more than they did on mammal species. My point was that they had the ability to take advantage of large reptile populations while pumas cant.
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Mean prey size for jags and pumas are the same in xeric areas, and similar in forests but only in floodplains is the jag’s mpw double that of the puma.
Here are some weights i found for young florida panthers:
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As you can see these are all young males who weighed 55-63kg. The last ss mentions a 3 year old male who weighed 55kg which is the same an adult male jaguar from belize.
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And here is a 2 year old male that weighed 65kg. So young male florida panthers weigh as much as adult male prime belizean jaguars wow! Pumas in cypress NP mainly prey on deer, raccoon, and rabbit.
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Several male pumas from this region weighing around 90 kilograms. Don’t most male Jaguars in the pantanal weigh around this much? Even then pantanal Jaguars have a much better prey base. Some of these pumas mainly killed and ate livestock. Jaguars in the pantanal eat everything in their territory and the abundance of livestock as well as their own favored wild prey is much higher. It would be foolish to believe that 100 kilograms is the max weight for male pumas btw. There have been many records from scientific literature of male pumas weighing upwards of 100kg, if you’d like I can post some of them.
Thank you for showing that what is EXCEPTIONAL for a puma, is just average for the jaguar.
107 kg for the largest puma population is average for the largest jaguar population. Period.
107kg was 1 of the only 7 male weights we have for this population. The largest jaguar population has a much better prey base than these pumas. Name one wild prey species that pumas have been confirmed preying on in the pampas region.
(04-17-2022, 02:54 AM)Twico5 Wrote: Not even close. Male jag and male cougar from the same region:
*This image is copyright of its original author
*This image is copyright of its original author
This photo was posted before but the person who posted it i believe claimed the jaguar was a female. Except in another frame you can see the its genatalia. Big male jaguar and male cougar (definitely not close to every other male cougar ive seen from this region).
The jag in the first image i posted is a big male, an above avg sized individual
If after seeing this image you still believe that jaguars are of the same size (body mass) than jaguars then you are blind.
Check the massive frame of the jaguar, pumas may be as tall and long but are much more slender, not even close to the might of the Panthera cat.
(04-19-2022, 01:57 AM)Twico5 Wrote: No sir the 1st image you posted has 0 reptiles listed in it. The 1st image has crab-eating foxes and agoutis but no yacare caiman yeah ok buddy.
I never said jags preyed on reptiles more than they did on mammal species. My point was that they had the ability to take advantage of large reptile populations while pumas cant.
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Mean prey size for jags and pumas are the same in xeric areas, and similar in forests but only in floodplains is the jag’s mpw double that of the puma.
Here are some weights i found for young florida panthers:
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*This image is copyright of its original author
*This image is copyright of its original author
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As you can see these are all young males who weighed 55-63kg. The last ss mentions a 3 year old male who weighed 55kg which is the same an adult male jaguar from belize.
*This image is copyright of its original author
*This image is copyright of its original author
And here is a 2 year old male that weighed 65kg. So young male florida panthers weigh as much as adult male prime belizean jaguars wow! Pumas in cypress NP mainly prey on deer, raccoon, and rabbit.
Realy, no reptiles' Are you shure?
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And remember that Hayward use the biggest database on jaguar's prey at this moment, so if there is no Yacare is because is not an important prey base and certainly avoided or just preyed if oportunity arise. Again, check the document, you will learn more about jaguar predation.
The average prey weight is just suggestive as is more related with preference and availability and can't be use to backup your claim that pumas are as large. Check that even in the areas were the pumas hunt the biggest prey available for they spectrum (north America) they still don't weight as much as the biggest jaguars.
And finally, what are you trying to show with the weights of pumas in Florida? Again, this shows a comparison between pumas with a much better prey base (like in Florida) and the jaguars from Belize with a lower prey base (mainly in armadillos) is unfair. If jaguars had the prey base as the Florida pumas they will be bigger than those pumas, while if the pumas had the small prey base as jaguars of Belize, they will be smaller than them, and that is a fact as I like in Guatemala and the pumas here as small and slender, maybe the same height and length never the same body mass.
The jaguar’s massive body and power is unrivaled! Did you guys know that a jaguar could drag a bull up a tree? It just doesnt need to because its the apex predator everywhere it lives
(04-19-2022, 02:00 AM)Twico5 Wrote: 107kg was 1 of the only 7 male weights we have for this population. The largest jaguar population has a much better prey base than these pumas. Name one wild prey species that pumas have been confirmed preying on in the pampas region.
As @Pckts already showed to you, that card was badly played by you. I use the pumas from Canada and USA, those are big monsters that surpass any puma population in the world, they prey in large elk deers and many large prey, but they still don't weight even close to the big jaguars. So, whatever you are trying to prove, pumas had a limit, and even when they are very powerfull they can't reach the size and strength of the jaguar, not even close.
Sorry, but pumas are not equal to the jaguar, even at the same size, they are not at the same weight, and when they are (Florida vs Belice) the puma had the adventage in prey base. Dwarf jaguars against regular sized pumas, not a fair comparison; biggest pumas are still smaller than the biggest jaguars. At the end, where is the debate? It not even existed.
(04-19-2022, 02:13 AM)Twico5 Wrote: The jaguar’s massive body and power is unrivaled! Did you guys know that a jaguar could drag a bull up a tree? It just doesnt need to because its the apex predator everywhere it lives
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Are you been ironic? Because those jaguars are more massive than those pumas. What is your point?
