Panthera onca

The jaguar is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus Panthera that is native to the Americas. Its distinctively marked coat features pale yellow to tan colored fur covered by spots that transition to rosettes on the sides, although a melanistic black coat appears in some individuals. With a body length of up to 1.85 m and a weight of up to 158 kg (348 lb), it is the biggest cat species in the Americas and the third largest in the world. The jaguar's powerful bite allows it to pierce the carapaces of turtles and tortoises, and to employ an unusual killing method: it bites directly through the skull of mammalian prey between the ears to deliver a fatal blow to the brain.

Panthera onca

USFWS · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
jaguarPBDB
Sits inside
PantheraPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Panthera
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Felidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Mass
800 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 1.3 million years on record.

The record covers at least 1.4 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 4.7 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 1 of 72 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 66 of 72 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 5 of 72 occurrences4.9–4.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences4.7–4.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.5–4.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.3–4.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.2–4.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.0–3.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.8–3.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.6–3.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.5–3.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.1–2.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.9–2.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.8–2.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.6–2.4 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.4–2.3 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.3–2.1 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.1–1.9 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.9–1.7 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.7–1.6 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.6–1.4 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.4–1.2 Mya — about 3 occurrences1.2–1.0 Mya — about 3 occurrences1.0–867 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences867 ka–693 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences693 ka–520 ka Mya — about 3 occurrences520 ka–347 ka Mya — about 4 occurrences347 ka–173 ka Mya — about 5 occurrences173 ka–0 Mya — about 37 occurrences1.4 Mya11.7 ka5.2 Mya0 Mya

72 occurrences of Panthera onca on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

72 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

12 formations

Sopas — 31.25°S, 57.00°WSopas — 32.05°S, 56.12°WNuapua — 20.75°S, 63.07°WNuapua — 20.87°S, 63.07°WTacubaya — 21.80°N, 102.30°WChapala — 20.30°N, 103.20°WWicomico — 29.60°N, 82.42°WSilver Bluff — 32.56°N, 80.29°WTarija — 21.53°S, 64.73°WLujan — 34.60°S, 59.15°WDolores — 34.38°S, 57.88°WTucuman — 26.81°S, 65.22°WBeaumont — 29.66°N, 94.09°WLibertad — 34.68°S, 55.70°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Panthera onca has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 57 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Panthera onca and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Panthera onca and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

900 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 66 sites for Panthera onca, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

53 references

Each of the 72 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 41 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content3

Picture of Panthera onca

Credit
USFWS
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Panthera onca · mnhn:zm:A1871

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itPanthera through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)