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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Consideration for future change

Dear Stassa and Malix, i suspect the information on the weight and size of the jaguar is incorrect, those specific dimensions resemble more closely a cougar or a panther, but i have reason to believe the cats that inhabit exclusively the amazon regions of peru and brasil are bigger and stronger animals; i have been able to visit cat zoo's around the zones of Lima and Iquitos, the tiger in lima's most notable zoo (parque de las leyendas) is roughly the same size as the jaguars in iquito's 'serpentario' (zoo) close to the amazon river. One thing that might explain why they are bigger in the Amazon may be because they share their habitat with the biggest snake in the world. I suspect this article is often confused with panthers because the animals in iquitos are quite different from the pictures you present here; which look like panthers. Theres an easy way to tell; a jaguar's head is not proportionate to it's body, they have really large heads and their paws are also significantly bigger, like the foot of a human; and these ones more often than not possess blue eyes. None of these crucial features are present in the cats of those pictures.

Edited 9:55- oh scrap that i found a link to an unexisting article: peruvian jaguar (otorongo) i might fill it out.

Mazymastiri 09:40, 10 July 2007 (UTC)Mazymastiri

Change

I notice the information on the most powerful big cat goes back and forth between the jaguar , and the oclet tiger. I think it's starting to become more of a "love for jaguars vs. tigers" thing. People, come on. The Siberian tiger is the largest cat, but the average African lion can get bigger than a simple Bengal. Just because it is the largest, it is not the most heavily built, does not have the strongest bite (let's study the anatomy of the jaw structure) and is not the most powerful. We can even compare the largest in which the animals have taken down for prey, with a single tiger having been documented taking down a 600 pound water buffalo on record, lions have documented taking down elephants but only in prides, tigers single handedly taking down elephant calves around the 600 pound ratio. The largest kill documented for a jaguar was a domestic bull in Mexico weighing over 1000 pounds. Furthermore, I have many text books on the big cats. Two seperate books will say two seperate things, with one saying the tiger is the strongest, and another saying the jaguar. I decided to go by which books were closest to modern research/publishes earliest and it says jaguar. So if you love tigers or jaguars, let's not make this personal, tigers are strong and deffinately more man killing, but new research points to the jaguar being strongest.

Conisderation for change

Let me say one thing: Because wiki is meant to be an online encyclopaedia for everyone, and I respected this idea, I tried to put only objective information, as objective as possible. Do not get me wrong, I love the big cats, and I have spent the last 14 years finding as much as I can, about the big cats I love, using every means that I can about the five big cat types: tiger, leopard, puma( the largest of small cat family to be precise, still, bigger than leopard), jaguar and cheetah. During the last 4 years, I have read a lot of English scientific articles and books about big cats too. And I am an Asian, I live near tigers and leopards the most, and my people are among those know about the tigers the best in the world, this I can proudly say. I hate biased information, and to get it straight: somthing comes from the book, does not mean it right. And I have proved this more than once. So whenever I found something suspicious to me, I tried my best to verify it. If the truth goes against my peronal interest, I will bitterly accept it, but only after I find out for myself. When something unfair is spoken about tigers or any other animals that I know and love, I can't stand it. Tigers weighed 120kg take down 1200 kg bull gaur whenever it manages to find one, that surprised me when I first read it 8 years ago, but now I know very clearly, that is the tiger housekeeping task. Analysis of anatomy and jaw structures like that I have read countless time, both in my own language and in English. The more I read, the more I realize they prove nothing. It is all relative, and estimate, sometimes they are no better than garbage. It just doesn't reflect the real thing in wild life, simple as that. if you want more discussion or have any questions regarding big cats and preys, you better go to real forests, staying there rgularly and making observations for yourself.

If you do not believe me, it's fine. Do not make enemy of each other for unworthy reason. By the way, can you give me the name of those books, every one of them, so I can read for myself? I would love to read anything about the big cats. To tell the truth, this is the the 1st time ever I come across so-called naturalists who would even bother compare animals by measuring that pound-for-pound whatever. That is strange, because it serves no real, serious purpose, and for me personally, ridiculously funny and, pointless. Perhaps there is some television program about this strange topic, these kinds of programs are for entertainment, sortta like Animal face-off, they are merely for killing time. Nature is not something we can measure physically with our mortal eyes. It takes a lifetime of dedication, even more than that to explore its myth. With 14 years studying about nature, I realize that what i know is still very tiny, and alot more I want to know. With that, let me sorry for saying that pound-for-pound tiger better than jaguar or others, such meaningless comparison goes against my own perspective of borderless nature, and it shames the animals too, if they can hear us talking about them that way. Again, if you do not agree with me, it is the matter of opinion. But we'd better respect the animals too, when we talk about them. Hope that you can understand my thinking.

I didn't entirely understand what point you were trying to prove or some of the things you said but I get the general opinion. We all love big cats here, and no one is tiger bashing. The tiger and the lion are the two most popular/recognizable cats in the world because tigers have stripes and lions have a destinctive mane. Doesn't necessary mean one is better than the other. As far as naturalists claiming the pound for pound thing being silly, tell that to National Geographic. Those are the serious scientists and naturalists who worked very hard to research to find out the statistics they deem proper to present to he world as the foremost leading in knowledge of the natural world. They wouldn't think it was funny such a thing was called "silly" and "worhtless." No one here is really enemies, just arguing for knowledge sake. New information is always welcomed but most importantly sited. And as for me personally, I've seen a few episodes of Animal Face-Off and have participated in the debates representing the big cats. Some of those episodes are a joke. More specifically the jaguar/anaconda episode in which the jaguar loses because it can not breath underwater after being dragged, ironically being computer animated just after I watched a real documentation ("Jungle Cat," kind of old) of a jaguar killing a full grown anaconda - and not the other way around. Anacondas' do get big, can open their mouths pretty wide, have been known to swallow children, jaguar cubs, and old/sick jaguars, but never a full grown healthy jaguar. It's the other way around. Regardless, I was not the only person upset with that show. Many other big cat fanatics will agree with some oddities in other battles. More importantly, tigers are a strongly mediatised animal, while the jaguar remains the least studied of the big cats. This really isn't the place to argue about tigers (which is sadly brought into the discussion of the other big cats as well) but more so to focus on a rarely studied and somewhat spotlight neglected animal; the jaguar.

I 'm not sure what your point is here, both of you. It sounds like an argument about whether Superman or Hulk is strongest. It's good you 've managed to keep that out of the main article.

Anyway, stop squabbling. Cheetahs are the fastest and there's no contesting that (and Batman is best) :P Stassa 13:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Factual information about the three largest cats

The following paragraphs will contain factual information about three cats, tiger, lion, and jaguar. My knowledge of cats, big cats in particular, comes from my extensive library of animal encyclopedias, books, DVDs, VHS tapes, literature specifically about big cats, volunteer work at zoos, and above all a passion for big cats and the desire to learn as much about them as I can, jaguars, lions, and tigers in particular. For wikipedia users who wish to learn more about these three fascinating animals please read on.


Tiger

The two types of tiger I will be covering here are the Bengal Tiger and the Amur Tiger. First we shall start with the Bengal.

The Bengal tiger is mostly indigenous to India but has some ranges in Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Myanmar. There are approximately 3,159–4,715 wild tigers, with about 333 in captivity, primarily in zoos in India. The “simple” Bengal Tiger averages 2.9 meters (9 1/2 feet) from head to tail and weigh about 220 kilograms (485 pounds) and 2.5 meters (8 feet) in length and weighing approximately 140 kilograms (300 pounds) for males and females respectively. The Bengal tiger can reach up to 272 kilograms (600 pounds) and 160 kilograms (353 pounds) for males and females respectively. Their range size is estimated at 10-39 km² (3.9–15 mile²) for females and 30-105 km² (11.7–40.5 mile²) for males.

Bengal tigers like all tigers and most cats are solitary. Bengal tigers prey primarily on wild deer and wild cattle. All prey are forest or grassland ungulates that range in size from 65 to 2,000 pounds (30-900 kg). Typically, wild tigers gorge themselves on fresh kills, and can eat as much as 40 pounds (18 kg) of meat at one time. The Tiger has been known and recorded to kill adult Gaur also known as “Indian Bison.” Tigers have a preference for gaur and chital.

The Amur or Siberian tigers are the largest tigers and the largest species of felines. Males can grow up to 3.3 meters (10' 9") long and weigh up to 306 kilograms (675 pounds). Females are smaller, measuring about 2.6 meters (8 1/2 feet) from head to tail, and weighing about 100 to 167 kilograms (200 to 370 pounds). In the Russian Far East these prey species are unevenly distributed and move seasonally. As a result, the territory size of Amur tigers is quite large, ranging from 100-400 km² (39–154 mile²) for females to 800–1,000 km² (309–390 mile²) for males.


Lion

The lion I will be covering in this segment is the African lion.

The lion is the largest carnivorous feline in Africa.But the leopard is stronger. It is considered to be the most social of all the felines, forming prides consisting of several females and lead by one or several males. Males usually weigh 180-185 kilograms (396-408 pounds) some males can weigh up to 220 kilograms (485 pounds); females usually weigh an average of 120 kilograms (265 pounds). The females hunt in groups, usually with related females, to take down prey including buffalo (cape buffalo can weigh up to 820 kg, almost as much as gaur), zebra, wildebeest, gemsbok, hartebeest, warthog, kob, impala and gazelle which constitute the majority of a lions diet. Like all cats lions have excellent acceleration but very low stamina, this is attributed to fast burning muscle, unlike wolves and other canines which have slow burning muscle and typically engage in long chases to kill prey rather than the ambush method preferred by felines. While the females hunt the males typically stay behind but there are some exceptions to this rule. When hunting buffalo, it is not unusual for the male to deliver the fatal bite because he is the largest member of the pride and much more powerful than his female counterparts. One of the main reasons a male lion does not actively participate in hunts in the Serengeti is because of their size and massive manes makes it very difficult for them to ambush prey unlike their female counterparts. In the more wooded Kruger National Park a rather different situation to this stereotype of the male lion occurs. Kruger male lions in fact acquire most of their food by killing it themselves and there is a separation in the prey killed by males and females. Males kill mainly buffalo, but also impala and warthog, whereas females concentrate on zebra and wildebeest. It should be no surprise that in these heavily wooded areas, much like jaguars and tigers, the male spends less time with the females. The male also serves as a deterrent against invading males and hyenas that will approach females, usually by bluffing, but the male lion will almost always call the hyena’s bluff.

The lion is a powerful animal whose strength is only exceeded by the tiger. Both cats have very similar skull structures, and compared to the rest of the cat family are particularly large in size. The aforementioned comment relates to the lion, Bengal tiger, Amur Tiger, and the Indochinese Tiger. The smaller Sumatran and South China Tiger are somewhat smaller than the other three, the Sumatran in particular is typically larger but around the weight of the largest and most powerful feline in the Americas, the jaguar.


YOu need to study before pulluting the web pages with this!! Leopards stronger than lions??? Sure, after they eat a secret formula and fly around the Serengeti rescuing animals and tourists in distress. Fact is, lions may well be stronger than tigers, but not a leopard straight outta hell could challenge an adult fit lion.

Jaguar

The jaguar is the largest and most powerful feline in the Americas and the third largest and third most powerful cat worldwide.

The Jaguar is commonly found in rain forests, savannahs, and swamps, but at the northern end of its territory it may enter scrub country and even deserts. The Jaguar still has a stronghold in the Amazon basin, but has been nearly wiped out of all drier regions. Wherever it is found, it requires fresh water as the Jaguar is an excellent swimmer.

Adult male and female jaguars may weigh between 56.25 and 95.71 kg (124 - 211 lb), but larger individuals weighing 130.63 and 151.05 kg (288 - 333 lb). have been recorded by scientists. Their length varies from 1.62 to 1.83 m (5.3 - 6 ft), excluding their 76.2 cm (30 in) tail. Females are typically 10 to 20 % smaller than males. The large jaguars would most assuredly be more powerful than Sumatran and South china tigers. Average size jaguars would also be able to hold their own against a Sumatran. Jaguars average or large are still much smaller than even an average African Lion, Bengal or Siberian tiger.

Pound for pound the jaguar is the most powerful cat. What this means is that relative to size if all cats were the same weight the jaguar would clearly be the most powerful. To further illustrate the point, I’m being a little redundant here but I most make sure I am clear,if a Siberian tiger and jaguar both weighed a total of 150 pounds the jaguar would be more powerful. However because of the large discrepancy between the jaguar’s size and the lion and tiger’s, it is not as powerful as its African and Asian cousins. The jaguar, relative to size, is the most heavily built of the cats earning it the reputation of “bulldog” of the cat world. It has a broad deep chest, short powerful limbs, and a most impressive set of jaws. Unlike the lion and tiger the jaguar has very little competition in the form of predators. Jaguars typically hunt peccary, caiman, tapir, deer, and larger rodents such as Capybara, Paca and Agouti, to reptiles, monkeys and fish. The favorite prey of Jaguars is peccary, which full grown weigh 20 to 40 kilograms (44 to 88) pounds. Jaguars that live near cattle ranches have been known to attack cattle and horses.

Jaguars are typically more energetic than there larger cousins and are active 50-60% during a 24 hour period. They have phenomenally strong jaws and kill prey with a single bite to the skull. This allows the jaguar to make meals out of armadillo and young caiman.

Conclusion

All three of these cats are very impressive. But let us make sure to separate fact from fiction, the jaguar is a most impressive feline but in terms of sheer power, the lion and tiger are more capable of taking down the largest of prey animals. Pound for pound the jaguar is the most powerful but this in now way means that is the most powerful of all the cats, it means that all things equal if all cats were the same weight the jaguar would prevail as the most powerful. In terms of hunting skills I believe that the jaguar has a higher efficiency than the lion or tiger. The jaguar’s success rate is around 30-40% whereas the lion is around 20-30% and the tiger is around 5-10%. The most effective of all felines is the puma with an astonishing success rate of 85%. The jaguar also has a wider prey base than lions or tigers. Take all of this in account and it still doesn’t mean the jaguar is the most powerful, the lion, Siberian, and “simple” Bengal tiger are so much larger and more powerful and thus capable of killing larger prey than the jaguar. In writing this I was not taking any hybrid cats into account, for example the liger, only the three largest naturally occuring cats were compared –Malix 21:25 EST December 8, 2005.



I changed the habitat of jaguars from central and south america to "warm regions of America", because they also live in the sonoran desert, which lies in north-America ( Sonora and Arizona). We are getting more and more sightings of them in north Mexico, and there are many of them being run over by cars. While most animals around the sierra are dissapearing, there seems to be more Jaguars. Can it be that they getting closer to water supplies near inhabitated areas because of the weird drought fromt he last years? (which by the way could be caused by us humans and our pollution), or are lodging and contamination haven a possitive effect on their population numbers? Any zoologists around here who can answer this questions?

I thought panthers/black panthers were all leopards. No?

Should we really have a big photo of them mating? Little riske, I must say.

Agree. It has been replaced with a photo of a single melanistic individual. 69.47.229.237 4 July 2005 20:01 (UTC)
Strongly disagree. Come on the BBC shows films of big cats mating at tea time. Cats kill, eat, and mate - that's about it really. Let's not be prudish. This is an encylopedia. Theresa Knott (a tenth stroke) 4 July 2005 21:10 (UTC)
To be fair, cats spend quite a lot of time sleeping too. But I quite agree the content of the mating picture was fine, its only real problem was a lack of copyright tags and source information. -- Solipsist 4 July 2005 23:34 (UTC)


I deleted the passage mentioning human sacrifices carried out by Jaguar knights. The human sacrifices were performed by priests, and the hearts were placed in sacred containers (to be 'fed' to the gods). Jaguars kept in the Aztec Emperor's zoo were sometimes fed the bodies of sacrifical victims, though.

WHAT ARE FEMALE JAGUARS CALLED THX

Cognate

In portuguese, "jaguar" means the US equivalent of the "black jaguar" or "melanistic jaguar". The equivalent to the US term jaguar would be "onça" or "onça-pintada"LtDoc 05:38, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

a

Jaguars are rich yellow to rusty red, some are white and very rarely are black. They like eating humans. But hardly ever do. only when they are cornered they will eat the jaguar species. But the jaguars are hunted for theyre skin and beatiful coat for alot of money, the animal is now iendnageded beacause veryone is buying the skjins and now there is a demand for it.

Cleanup

I changed the line claiming the jaguar is the most powerful cat to the jaguar is the most powerful cat after the lion and tiger. Although pound for pound it is the most powerful cat, it is not a powerful as an African lion, Bengal tiger, or Amur tiger. Pound for pound a wolverine is more powerful than a brown bear but this does not mean that the wolverine is stronger.

I changed the Jaguar's physical characteristics to those that are correct and cited verifiable sources. Also added references to factual information contributed by other wikipedia users. I plan to organize this article with headings and expand on it. Remember include factual information and please cite references.Malix 18:49 EST, December 4, 2005.

Also when adding your references to the page please make sure they are credible. Make sure that the site you are adding as a reference contains information within it that clearly backs up your contribution to the page. One user referenced a page that had a picture of a Tiger with a facial expression called Flehmen, the caption read "This tiger looks as though it has tasted or smelt someting really horrible!" Flehmen reponse is created by the transfer of chemicals into the vomeronasal organ also known as the Jacobson organ. The purpose of this expression is to allow tigers (or other animals as well) to smell the urine of others in order to determine several factors. The website that posted this information was clearly created by a group or individual who does not understand big cat behavior. Because of this it is not a credible source of information. Remember just because you read something on the internet it doesn't mean it is absolute fact. I could create a website and declare that the pallas cat is the most powerful felid and is more than capable at killing large prey animals than an African Lion, Jaguar, Tiger, or Polar Bear.

I have found myself reading information about something new and then start to realize inconsistencies, misinformation, and just plain false information. Credibility is paramount when contributing to articles.

Above all make sure to maintain a NPOV, cats are a very interesting subject that can spur anyone to defend what feline they feel is the most superior. This should not be tolerated, please do not let your personal feelings get in the way of your constructive contribution. With that said I would like to thank everyone who has contributed constructively to this article and urge anyone who has a strong factual knowledge of cats, especially jaguars, to contribute to this article. Malix 22:49 EST, December 7, 2005.

Organized

I finally got around to organizing the article in sections, hope everyone likes it. I would like to expand on it further but I am tired so that will have to wait till tomorrow. --Malix 00:37 EST, December 7, 2005.

I deleted the passage mentioning human sacrifices carried out by Jaguar knights. The human sacrifices were performed by priests, and the hearts were placed in sacred containers (to be 'fed' to the gods). Jaguars kept in the Aztec Emperor's zoo were sometimes fed the bodies of sacrifical victims, though.

There was a civilization that believed the most honorable way for a criminal to die was to be thrown into a pit with five man-killing/eating jaguars. I watched it on the Discovery Channel but for the life of me can't remember the name of the civilization.

(More Organization) I decided to fix up the grammatical errors to make the article nicer while still trying to convey the intenton that some people were trying to give in a more proper and professionally written way - all the while trying to keep the article as close to the original and short and sweet as possible. I did, however, have a few additional changes. I changed the jaguars head to being round instead of swuare because it pretty much confused me to describe it's head as square, they do have large jowls but because of so much more muscle than that of the leopard (in which the comparison was made) I chose round, while leopards have a bit of a dip in between their jowls to their muzzle. It just made more sense. I took out the mention of climbing abilities along swimming because a jaguar is far more likely to swim, just as a tiger, yet the anaology made with a tiger was that they are tree climbers. Both cats CAN climb trees but due to their mucular structure chose not to because it is rather difficult for them. Some individual cats weigh so much they literally can't climb the trees. Leopards climb trees on a regular basis and hunt from them, jaguars do not. "They are the largest predator in their range." Though the range of the jaguar is defined, "their range" is a bit vague. "He's the biggest thing in his bedroom." I tried to be more specific and changed that to the western hemisphere. Remember, though bears are larger than jaguars, they are considered omnivores. I removed the paragraph: "A skull of a glyptodon was discovered in Arizona with puncture holes made by the fangs of a big cat. The jaguar was the first suspect in this case because of its trademarked habit of killing prey by biting through the skull, instead of the neck like other cats." Though information about prehistoric jaguars is helpful, there was no article to support this data and the fact that a prehistoric skull had bite marks in it is not enough information. On anything. o_O And that's pretty much the only changes I felt I needed to do outside of grammatical. Hope that helps.

Guaraní

The Guaraní word is not Januareté but Yaguareté, and I find it difficult to believe that yaguar ment dog, when the domestic animal was unknown to the Native Americans. Wherever I searched, I found that yaguar means fierce or beast. Mariano(t/c) 12:47, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how Wikipedia works, but regardless the Jaguar is not the "largest carnivore in the Western Hemisphere" the Polar bear is. I don't know how to update wikipages. -Andy.

Bears are classified as omnivoress, even though they are larger.

"...raising no more than two of them to adulthood."

I can't find a source for the statement that only two are raised to adulthood. Anyone know where it came from? Marskell 08:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I can't find a source for that statement either. Joelito (talk) 02:00, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I placed a fact request. I'll leave it a couple of days and remove the statement if there is no answer. Marskell 21:43, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Section heading don't make sense

For example how is are physical characteristics distinct from biology? Why not use the model that has been applied to several featured animals like the Tasmanian Devil and White's Tree Frog? It extremely flexible and covers everything covered here.--Peta 02:20, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I have yet to find the ideal list of sections for animals or decide on one myself. In the two you list, for instance, why place ecology and behaviour together? When I get to ecology I'd like to split it into "ecological role" and "conservation status"...yet, these seemed to flow from "distribution and habitat" as well, so I thought I might make a large level two and bring them all together.
Yes, biology and physical characteristics are not properly distinct. I put biology and behaviour together because discussing one seemed inevitably a discussion of the other (ie., mating and reproduction). We could simply bring physical characteristics under the headline. Marskell 08:47, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps this:
  • Etymology
  • Taxonomy
  • Biology
    • Physical characteristics
    • Reproduction and life cycle
  • Behaviour
    • Social structure
    • Hunting and diet
  • Ecology
    • Distribution and habitat
    • Ecological role
    • Conservation status
  • In mythology and culture
I like having biology, behaviour, and ecology as one word headlines forming the meat of the article. Marskell 10:13, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I think that etymology unnecessary since it is pretty hard to ever write more that a paragrah on the subject and can be merged into taxonomy. There is usually enough info to have reproduction in its own section. I also think that ecology and behavour fit together nicely (+ there is always the option of sub sections) since behaviours are often tightly linked with habitat (having them as a combined header is also very useful when there isn't much known about either. I also prefer to have conservation on its own, since conservation issues are important, especially for rare species.--Peta 06:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, we'll have to disagree I guess. We'll wait until this is filled out to see how long the sections are. Marskell 09:21, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

"In the early 1900s, the jaguars' range..."

"In the early 1900s, the jaguars' range actually extended as far north as Southern California and western Texas". I assume a permanent populations is meant. However, the IUCN states "disappearance in the mid-1900's from the southwestern US and northern Mexico". That's a half century difference. Any source that anyone knows of for the southern California bit? Marskell 21:56, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The refs

They're totally going batshit and seem to be changing every time I load it. Does anyway now what the problem is? Marskell 18:05, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Well you had a little problem with the refs which I fixed. You must remember to use </ref> at the end of the reference. You were using <ref/>. When using a reference twice then you use <ref name="Name"/>. Joelito (talk) 20:19, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, wiki itself was having a problem :). For 24 hours citations were screwy. See this thread for instance. Apparently fixed, though I really hope it doesn't happen again because it's a damn waste of time. Thanks for continuing to look at this article, anyhow. I've been sort of talking to the void. I'll try to remember about where to put the slash! Marskell 21:30, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

References used

Rather than making the FAC far too massive, I thought I'd list the refs as a checklist to work through here. There are thirty-eight at present:

Good

  • Two explanatory notes
  • 13 research papers
  • One US Fed Gov
  • The Hamdig (Ecology Online Sweden) link gives a brief over-view of various papers and has an extensive bibliography
  • Two from the IUCN
  • Seven from the lengthy Guidelines for Captive Management of Jaguars (including one briefer factsheet)
  • = 26

I would call it acceptable

  • World wildlife fund
  • Wildlife Conservation Society
  • Akron zoo (for general info)
  • Phoenix zoo (for general info)
  • The National Geographic Special (for a generic comparison)
  • Illinois State Museum
  • The local gov glossary defining umbrella species.
  • Three deal with etymology and I think are fine for the limited context
  • Mongabay.com. Move this up: his references are actually quite extensive and well-described. I think I will just have to qualify it carefully.
  • An on-line re melanism. Written by an academic, with bibliography.
  • A radio station noting jag is national animal of Guyana. I can probably find a gov source.
  • One Arizona gov link describing the cats appearances there
  • = 14

Uncertain

  • Encarta. What's the consensus on this one? I've tried to limit its use here, though it does have a lot of info.
  • Carnivore preservation trust. Doesn't cite sources and should probably go. I didn't notice it was written by students, though.
  • National Audubon Society. This was a bit of "colour" added from personal travel story. I can remove it, if people like.
  • Tigerhomes. Doesn't cite sources and should probably go to.
  • South West Wildlife. Seems a legitimate conservation group, but doesn't cite its sources. Not sure. Really don't need this one.
  • = 1

Sing zoo, BBC, and Animal Diversity Web have all been eliminated. Marskell 09:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Not A Reptile

Edited the opening sentence in lieu of the fact that the Jaguar is a mammal, not a reptile. Mattcolville 07:37, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

You were looking at a vandalized version. It's a risk that increases when an article is on the main page... Marskell 08:02, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Etymology

I would just like to clarify that "ther" on its own doesn't mean anything in Greek. It's the root for "θηρίον" (therion, beast, come to mean mostly beast of prey), "θηρευτής" (thereutis, predator) and "θήραμα" (therama, pray), but it does need a termination or a prefix to make any sense.

This Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_%28legendary_creature%29

identifies "panther" as a legendary and later heraldic beast. I 'm not sure why; the animal shown is clearly a big cat. So why "mythological"?

It is true that modern Greece is notable for the complete absence of big cats from its area. However, the Greek language has a word for lion and a word for leopard ("λέων", leon and "λεοπάρδαλις", leopardalis, respectively). Sculptures of possibly maneless lions are prominent in Mycene, as in the "Gate of Lions" and a mosaic of what is commonly referred to as a leopard (but is obviously a Cheetah if you ask me) can be found on a Minoan palace (forgive the vagueness; I can't remember where exactly. I think in Thera actually).

Granted, this doesn't necessarily mean that big cats roamed the Greek countryside in times past. It is a strong possibility, but the Greeks might have seen the animals in their travels to and from Greece at any point in their history. Of course, they could just as well have simply hunted them to extinction, as usual.

Now, whether they had seen enough big cats of different species to need a separate word to describe them as a group, such as "panther" that too is open to debate. Obviously, they never needed a word for "jaguar"!

In any case, I 'm not convinced about the etymology of the word panther (no offence meant to the article's editor). I 'd like to look at this a little more carefully before I venture a verdict. It is quite possibly folk etymology as you say, but the word just sounds so Greek to my ears- perhaps though it's just that it sounds familiar instead of actually Greek. Oh well. You can't escape your upbringing I guess. Stassa 13:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

All Greek to me ;)...though thanks for the in-depth comment. The very brief description of this was included to fill out the small section; I do trust this but only as an amateur. As noted below, I thought the page was fairly diligent in this regard, not just throwing out etymologies without looking. Perhaps in this case a further dig is in order. Panthera itself may be the place to start, if you have sources. Marskell 22:39, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Keep in mind, scientific names are often a combinatio of greek, latin and latinised stuff. Effectvely only going back to the orignal desciprion will solve the issue. I would reply on http://www.etymonline.com as they are generally quite reliable. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:36, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Taxonomy section

I updated the taxonomy section. It was outdated at many places. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 16:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I have reinserted "qualified evidence" before monophyletic as the source doesn't present it as a slam-dunk. Also, I don't recall reading that European jag and American lion also showed leopard characteristics. I can go back and check, but it was specifically point to jag/lion. Marskell 17:01, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I find qualified evidence is such a weasel word. The text itself should make clear how strong it is. The issue is clear, the evidence is unclear about whether the snow leoapard is included. However, this is still a single clade (there is NO evidence whatsoever to support a polyphyletic origin, if at all, it is a paraphyletic genus). -- Kim van der Linde at venus 17:08, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
OK, fair enough. "Qualified evidence" is "weasel words" on the one hand and "just trying to be careful on the other" :(. I'll re-read the sources here. I notice it's been edited, and have edited myself because the prose was tortured (much repeating of subjects and objects). Why shift the analysis of the sub-species list after the list itself? The first sentence "Pocock, 1939" was meant to indicate its age and go from there. Marskell 22:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
I have fixed the sentence about the paraphyly again, because the paraphyly is conditional to the naming. If the name of the snow leopard is changed, there is no issue, as some authors actuially do. As for the subspecies, well, that is an historical relict, currently, no evidence for subsopecies exists. So, I think you have to start the obvious, the way it is now, it suggests that there are still recognized subspecies, which is incorrect. People do not get the picture that it was an ancient study, you have to make it clear. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:04, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
I think your point would have been made clearer if you had not removed the paragraph that discussed these problems but had edited and improved it. Generally, I think edits should not removed information if possible. Maybe the removed paragraph was a mistake. That happens to me sometimes. --Blue Tie 01:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Nothing was removed, it was reordered. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Re monophyletic, the guidelines: "Morphological similarities imply a monophyletic origin among lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars; yet specific relationships based on mtDNA have evaded clear definition and may lean toward a polyphyletic (i.e. from multiple ancestral sources) radiation (Johnson and O’Brien, 1997)."

The trees provided in the article do NOT confirm this conclusion, nor did I read it in that article when I scanned it. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 14:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The paper is "Phylogenetic Reconstruction of the Felidae Using 16S rRNA and NADH-H Mitochondrial Genes" but I cannot find an abstract. Kim, I'm assuming that the paper from this year [1] is the one that supports the contention "there is NO evidence whatsoever to support a polyphyletic origin". If you have access to it, could you post a quote to that affect?

Have a look here for the definitions: http://tolweb.org/tree/home.pages/glossary.html After that, have a look at the various trees and tell me which of them supports a polyphyletic genus Panthera. If you need the reprints, send me an e-mail, I have them all as I have access to all those journals because it is my field of work. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 14:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Re subspecies, I do understand current to past makes sense but I'm uncertain about moving from suggestive to didactic. Larson: "Relationships among the eight recognized subspecies of jaguar were examined. using Multigroup Discriminant Analysis (MDA) and univarite statistics. Discriminant analyses of these skull characteristics does not indicate distinct groups, supporting the null hypothesis"—supporting the null hypothesis, not confirming it.

The null-hypothesis (H0) is the basic hypothesis, and that is that something is not there. You only accept the alternative hypothesis (H1) if you have evidence that that is a better hypothesis than H0. Neither study found support for H1. If anything, the results of both were supporting H0, not H1. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 14:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Kim is correct here. The null hypothesis can never be accepted, only the alternative hypothesis can be accepted. The statistical conclusion that we can make about the null hypothesis is that it is not rejected. Joelito (talk) 14:51, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

See this from this year: "gene flow was present between [two suggested subspecies], and heterogeneity was relatively low, although the assignment analyses showed good classification of the jaguars studied into their respective subspecies." I honestly don't think it our place to say with certainty that subspecies have been totally discarded. Marskell 09:20, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

If you had the whole articles, you would know that they also conclude that the limited differentiation and the presence of gene flow casts doubt on the subspecies separation. Furthermore, this is one of the mentioned barrirs in the other articles, and recognizion of population structure is not equivalent to subspecies. So, they have used the proposed subspecies boundary which corresponds with a known population boundary, and have shown that the two populations are seperate enough to assign the correctly to the two sides of the barier that restricts the gene flow. That is not the same as confirming they are subspecies.-- Kim van der Linde at venus 14:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Point taken on null hypothesis and reworked as "taxonomic reevaluation has not confirmed the subspecies hypothesis." And just to be clear, I'm not arguing for either point or suggesting that the sources do. I just want to be sure of the difference between "casts doubt on" and "overturns" re both.
The only thing that concerns me in the above is "nor did I read it in that article when I scanned it" concerning the 1997 paper. Where I've found specific sources from the Guidelines (I have been able to look at a majority of the papers, thx to Peta), it is usually accurate in representing things. Marskell 18:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, they severly misrepresented the evidence as presented in that article, by taking a small side note from the discussion and suggest based on that that the genus is polyphyletic (the side note is on the age of the genus, in short, if the fossil (2m (note, recent fossils up to 3.8m)) AND the molecular (6m) data are right, the only way to reconcile them is that the genus should be polyphyletic (and please, do not get me started about the reliability of either estimate, the confidence intervals are probaly somewhere between 10 million years ago and one million years in the future)). All evidence in the articles supports a monopyletic genus, not even an discussion about paraphyly. I personally do not think a husbandry manual is the best source to rely on for taxonomic aspects. :-) -- Kim van der Linde at venus 19:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
No, it's not the best, but it is a professional, summative, secondary source, which is the sort of thing we need here. I could not find another good secondary source that covered nearly as many bases. Per the FAC though, I've tried to use primary sources for more specific points and use the Guidelines as a honeypot to raid. Thanks for looking at it. I'll send an e-mail tomorrow. Perhaps a sentence can be added on the 2006 paper linked above.
One bloody annoying problem I've had is finding a good paper on parenting in the wild. I've used a newsletter from a conservation society in the "Life cycle" section but I'd like to have a primary source to confirm it. If you know of one, that would be great. Marskell 22:57, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, I am sure the source was good for many aspects, it was however wrong on the polyphyly, which is not completly surprising as they have thier own different expertise. One issue with zoo and conservation people is that they in general love splitting, and if you search around, you will still see the subspecies names floating around. However, on this kind of topic, the general public's preference is not always in line with the insights in science.
I have found around 100 articles, if you want, I can send the abstracts of all of them, so that you can have a look. I found another phylogeny paper today, and I will rewrite the section accordingly. I think we might want to condense the geographical variation section somewhat and add the arrticle in question. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 03:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Tax cont'd

I notice that the edit today removes the monophyletic bit, and our list of the order of divergence in favour of "The position of the remaining species varies between studies and is effectively unresolved." Was the list of tigris first, onca second, etc. incorrect or simply removed as being over-detailed? Yu and Zhang seem to reconfirm it in their abstract, but then I do notice in the Science table that onca and leo are grouped after pardus. Might we say: "Studies consistently show that the tiger diverged first, but the position of the remaining species is effectively unresolved" and then have a note "compare Y and Z"?

Would a sentence like this work: "Pocock's subspecies structure is still utilized for morphological purposes but has been largely disproven at that genetic level" or something like that. The Columbia paper: "Columbia contains two of the eight currently accepted morphologically proposed subspecies." Marskell 18:32, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, have a look:

  1. Yu & Zhang 1
  2. Yu & Zhang 2
  3. Yu & Zhang 3
  4. Yu & Zhang 4
  5. Janczewski
  6. Johnson & O'Brian 1997
  7. Mattern and McLennan 2000
  8. Bininda-Edmonds 2001
  9. Jae-Heup 2001
  10. Johnson et al 2006
Any inference of the order at this time based on the various studies and the large differences it shows would be original research. And to be honest, I, as someone who actively works with interpreting these kind of studies, would not feel comfortable to draw any conclusion at the moment other than that it is a big mess. Keep in mind that we are writing an encyclopedia, not a review paper on the taxonomic position of the Pathera genus based on all the available literature. It is frustrating, but this is how it is.
Larsen disproves that the subspecies can be recognized based on morphological criteria (actually, he uses the SAME skull measurements as Pocock), and his sample is much larger than Pocock's. So, that would be incorrect. The Columbia paper startes from the point that there ARE two subspecies, and goes from there. However, they then compare their results with gene-flow in other species, and conclude that the amount of gene flow between the imaginary subspecies is actully larger than between some populations of other species that are just one single (sub)species. So, they show some population structure, but fail to show any evidence for subspecies difference. On a side note, if those values are proof for subspecies, I have to split my studies species in thousants of subspecies, but nobody would take me serious..... -- Kim van der Linde at venus 19:28, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, that is a bit of a mess and indeed we should not suggest any one above another. Given that you've taken the time to create the table, maybe place it on the Panthera page? Then we can have a "for more info" note on this page.
Sorry to be a total frickin idiot repeating the subspecies point, but when the Columbia paper states "...two of the eight currently accepted morphologically proposed subspecies (Pocock 1939)" in its intro, what is meant? Accepted in toto?; accepted as a kind of methodological starting point, even if disproven in fact? It seems like disproof without a statement of rejection. "Still utilized for morphological purposes" was meant in the latter sense--i.e., people use Pocock, even if his specifics have been overturned. Marskell 22:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
As for the table, it is just partial, there are more trees to add. Personally, I think the only sensile tree is to have a single polytomy for the genus as a total, with he clouded leopard at the basis.
After some elimination, that sentence reduces to Accepted proposed subspecies. That is a contradictio in terminis, are they proposed or accepted? If I had been the reviewer of that article, I would have indicated they should clear that up. But that is partly beside the point. What scientists do is to start with what is, in this case, unclarity about the genetic variation bwteen two proposed subspecies. If this study would have shown that there is unambigious support for the two subspecies (out of 8 or out of 3), it would have been in the abstract, without any fuss. In the article itself, they fuss a lot about genetic variation, but when it has to come down to the bare facts, they have to report a Fst is 0.02 for the measure of genetic heterogeneity between the two subspecies. This is VERY low and this study is a prime example to dismiss the ideas of subspecies. Just to compare, we are finalising a manuscript on a species that is found from canada to europe to siberia, and the genetic heterogeneity (Fst's) between the three populations are between .16 and .37. The sentence "Still utilized for morphological purposes" is grosely misleading, as Larson has shown so clearly that you can not distinguish the subspecies based on that. Ok, you can use it to distiguish a typical northern individual from a typical southern individual, but beyond that, no go.
What we are discussing is a fairly typical case for large cuddely and imaginative species. Sloppy studies from long ago (Pocock distiguishes 8 subspecies based on 'morphology' when he does not even have skulls of all subspecies (!!!), aka, he just used geographical arguments. This would be unacceptable research by current standards!) tend to live long as long as there is no new better research showing the opposite. In the meanwhile, it seeps in to the public arena, and long after that scientists have disproved an idea, it still lives there. Conservationists, policy makers, and others, who have political goals cultivate these subdivisions. If it becomes clear that there is only one big group of Jaguar's, and the American subspecies are just the same as the Mexican etc, whole carefully build up strategies to get money for conservation collapse. So, you see that those groups keep hold on to subspecies delinations, even when the science is not sound or even dispoven. With the Jaguar, it is clear that the old subspecies do not hold, now it has to be accepted at large, which will take time. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 00:37, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
"Accepted proposed". I had wondered. I thought it might be clever taxonomist speak. (Random diversion) Then I opened another beer and got thinking about Freud and how somebody can be a "methodological starting point" and still be considered wrong on virtually all of their specifics. All I meant to say was people still use Pocock as an entry point to the subspecies analysis. Full stop. Marskell 10:26, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, it is indeed sometimes still used as a starting point.... :-) -- Kim van der Linde at venus 12:49, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I just crosschecked our discussion with the carnivore specialist here at work, and she confirms that there are no recognized subspecies anymore, and that the genus Pathera is effectvely unresolved. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 16:12, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Good (for our purposes, if not the status of knowledge). Thanks for the legwork. Marskell 21:23, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Etymology 2

As a student of language "Tupi", I would like to say that Jaguar came only from "Tupi", and not from "Tupi-guarani". Actually, Tupi-guarani is not a language, but a group of more than 20 indigenous languages. One of these languages is called itself Tupi and known as "Old Tupi" or "Classic Tupi", just because it was spoken centuries ago and it is not spoken in its original form anymore. So I'm changing the term "Tupi-guarani" by "Tupi".

Eek. This is the second note on etymology. The page relies on the sources found. I thought we did well here because we didn't repeat the (apparent) error that the name denotes "beast that kills in a single bound". Virtually every source would throw this in as an after-thought but it seems to be wrong. If you have a Tupi-English source on the name that is more precise, that would be great. Marskell 22:19, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
The first source is reliable, the second http://www.iberianature.com/trivia/etymology_mammals.htm relies on wikipedia, and some digging suggest it is a self referece. The first indicates tupi language, as our natuve speaker correctly indicates, the second is verbatim the wikipedia text ...... -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it's the other way around. We rely on it verbatim. Marskell 09:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
It says itself that it uses wikipedia as a source, and as such, it is a not-to-use page for reference, because you can get circularity. If you do a search, only that page and wikipedia have it, and it is nowhere else used..... -- Kim van der Linde at venus 17:38, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
The user mentioned below listed a few Spanish sources on my talk, so I think we're OK. Marskell 21:41, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Scratch. The sentence appears before the source, so it may be circular. I've asked User:Marianocecowski who added it in April. Marskell 10:04, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Spanner in the works time: [2], [3] and [4] (although this has other errors including the "kills in a single bound" one) all claim the name is from Guaraní meaning "dog bodied" or "body of dog" and this one [5] claims it is from Guaraní meaning "fierce dog". I suppose it depends on which of the Tupi or Guaraní languages you are translating from. There are also many sources claiming it to be of Guaraní rather than Tupi origin without necessarily giving the translation. Maybe the etmyology section could be reworded to express the doubts as to its origin. Yomanganitalk 12:21, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Thx for looking Yomangani. Yes, rendering it doubtful rather than sure would be best. Presumably the term underwent extension or narrowing when borrowed from one to the other. Do you want to try the edit, given the Spanish? Marskell 16:14, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations to editors

i just wanted to say that very few species articles here on wikipedia offer anything more than a bland rundown of general data. Most are nothing more than stubs. but this article has dealt with the topic in an in-depth way that is what wikipedia is all about. -Zappernapper 20:36, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Great! Marskell 10:05, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Common names

According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)), common names as Jaguar, Lion, Tiger etc should be capatilised, or do I miss something? -- Kim van der Linde at venus 20:03, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

"[The rule] is that each WikiProject can decide on its own rules for capitalization" is something of a band-aid. Considering "common" noun as a grammar term, not as a taxonomic one, I would suggest that insofar as a species name is a proper noun the capital is justifiable ("The Tiger is magnificent") but because the word is almost always used like a common noun ("tigers like water") the capital is not colloquially deployed, even in cases where the usage qualifies as a proper noun. And in this case I followed common use: I made a point of changing all plural uses to the singular, where it is more obviously a proper noun, but did not use a capital. Being something of a descriptivist, I don't think it should be changed unless we can show other fauna pages, and sources in general, do so.
In some instances in English the proper/common difference is nearly always upheld (e.g., "the Moon" versus "moons") but with fauna it is not IMO. Marskell 21:49, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, according to the inhouse science editor that we have, it is Jaguar because it is the common name and as such a proper noun. But in the mammals, it is pretty messy on wikipedia. For birds, this problem will be soon rsolved with the official name list in the coming weeks, although there it is done already that way. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 17:36, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
When dealing with stylistics though, scientific usage is only one part (an obviously important one) of how we should represent things. If English speakers write "lions, tigers, and bears" (they do, near as I can tell) and not "Lions, Tigers, and Bears" then an argument can always be made that we should follow the former. Of course, idiosyncrasies abound; people write "Germans" not "germans", but "lions" rather than "Lions". Marskell 18:19, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
A grab-bag: lower case is used at Britannica, Encarta, the BBC, the US gov source listed here, and the first three abstracts I randomly looked at (I'll assume the others are consistent).
To be clear, I realize it's a proper noun as used here, but was suggesting that usage ("is") and the rule ("ought") do not to conform. I would defer to usage. Marskell 21:36, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Melanism

Would this link be OK? I wanted to note 6% melanism. Marskell 12:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Based on what I know, seems a resonable estimate. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 17:30, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Anaconda

Why was my inclusion of the anaconda as jaguar prey reverted from the jaguar page? I have read about this on a number of occasions. Is the source considered not credible or do you not believe that this occurs? 70.22.102.128 23:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

It was reverted because the reference provided does not meet Wikipedia:Reliable sources. This article has been extensively researched so only reliable sources are considered. Joelito (talk) 23:40, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'll look for a different source. However, I think you are incorrect in your assumption regarding the site I provided re jaguars preying on large caiman. The term "fan site" is used in this context as a place for fans of Jeff Corwin's show to learn more about the animals profiled rather than to connote a site actually maintained by fans of the show. That link is to Animal Planet's official site and contains information provided by Jeff Corwin, an expert on the subject. Thus, it clearly meets the "reliable source" criteria (see FN 40 for a similar source, the Web site of a conservation group). Furthermore, despite the article being extensively researched, I do not see any source stating that jaguars are limited to preying caiman of certain sizes, so I'm not sure that limitation should be the status quo in any case. 70.22.102.128 00:07, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I reverted to this version in the absence of any explanation as to why it would not be appropriate. 149.79.54.95 13:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Again, I do not see the basis for this qualified claim. The sources for that paragraph do not limit jaguar prey to "caiman up to a certain size" any more than they limit jaguar prey to "deer up to a certain size." If the standard is to qualify everything, then I guess we should say jaguar also prey on deer up to a limited size? For this qualification to make any sense, there has to be a legitimate basis for it and I have yet to see it from the source material provided. Otherwise, there's just no foundation for the initial statement.

In addition, I do not understand why the site maintained by the Animal Planet television network (a network that employs multiple experts and has a strong reputation for reliability) is not considered sufficiently reliable. The conservation group "Defenders of Wildlife" is used as a source in the same paragraph, and I struggle to see how it can be distinguished from the Animal Planet network in terms of reliability. 149.79.54.95 14:09, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Millions of years ago???

If that's not biased towards evolution, then what is? There are many people around the world that believe the earth to be no more than 7000 years old. The authors of this article should be more specific as to who said what. Panda

This article is "biased towards" scientific research, no more or less. Follow the many links to research papers to learn more. Marskell 01:54, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

my original question's still unanswered. there are no links that prove this 'scientific research' to be universal belief. Panda

Wikipedia doesn't traffic in "universal belief". There are, however, dozens of links that show what researchers dealing in testable scientific work believe, which is enought for a general purpose encyclopedia; none of the pieces I looked at showed a species lineage in the range of 7k yrs. Marskell 20:43, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Upper case

Who decided upon Jaguar rather than jaguar? This has been gone over: yes, it's (usually) a proper noun, but proper noun animal names do not usually take the upper case in common usage (the bear, not the Bear). I'm changing back. This needs to be defended, if it's going to be changed. Marskell 23:51, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Capitalization

See WP:BIRD for the rationale behind the capitalization of species' common names. - UtherSRG (talk) 23:51, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

We're not talking about birds. We're talking about a large mammal. Common English usage does not capitalize in this case. Marskell 23:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Basically the mammals are all over the place, WP:BIRD uses caps, WP:FISH uses sentence case, and nobody is consistent. Have fun. Yomanganitalk 00:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Our sources are "right" and I still have the PDFs sitting on my desktop. They do not use upper case. Marskell 00:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
There was a discussion someplace, probably on WP:TOL that stated that, even for mammals, there are sources that capitalize, and there are sources that don't, and that basically, Wikipedia should make a decision. There's lots of silence on WP:MAM, but some mammal subprojects, use the capitalization. None have said not to. And if you want large mammals, look at the apes. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Then again, nobody has said change those that are using lowercase, and for an alternative selection of large mammals look at the other big cats, hippopotamus, orangutan (apes don't look that consistent either). Yomanganitalk 01:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
There are two species of orangutans: the Bornean Orangutan and the Sumatran Orangutan. Species are capitalized; groups of species (in the orangutan's case, the genus) are not. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I realised that afterwards, but couldn't be arsed to come back and correct my mistake. Sorry. The point still stands though, there is no consistent approach, and until there is one, swapping the case on an article where the consensus has been to have it lowercase doesn't seem that constructive. Yomanganitalk 02:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
"...there are sources that capitalize, and there are sources that don't." In this case, I have yet to see a source that does and I've looked at all of them. I'll go back and check them all again, if you like. I'm sorry: we're not making a decision that contradicts the fifty-odd sources used on this page. This was discussed at the time of the main page. Jaguar is a proper noun, and if usage followed the rules it would be capitalized. But usage doesn't, and we should defer to usage.
And what's up with the unilateral action? The change was made as a minor with no edit summary. In the absence of a Wiki rule, we should follow long-standing practice and respect the initial author, much as we do with Brit and American spelling. I've rv'ed thrice, and won't do so again. Let's at least discuss this. Marskell 08:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and if we're going with genus lower case, species upper case, we've really got it backwards: Panthera is always capitalized in the sources, jaguar never is. Marskell 08:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Brazilian Portuguese Name...

Why is the Brazilian Portuguese name included in the intro paragraph? Let's just add the Tupi-Guarani name too, and maybe the Quechua one, and the Spanish on while we're at it. Then the Continental Portuguese name, then the French one, the Italian one, the Dutch one too, the Suriname Dutch one too. Let's just go one and one until we have the the name in every language that has ever been and their way of saying Jaguar.

NO, put the common English name (this is ENGLISH Language wikipedia, nao e portugues nem brasileiro), any other names commonly used to refer to the animal and it's BINOMIAL LATIN Biological name... THAT'S IT.

If it's that important to you add this "(Brazilian Portuguese: onça pintada)" to a section about what it is called in other languages.


_______________________ My father (whom I did not grow up with) and his son from his second marriage live deep in the woods in northern Louisiana in Union Parish. They, as most of that side of my family, are obsessive hunters. Most of their free time they spend in the woods, either hunting or just sitting and thinking. Anyway, I think it worth noting that they my father, brother, and one of my aunts (the one who hunts the most) have all told me that they have a number of times seen what they describe as a "black" or "dark spotted" mountain lion during their long sittings on any one of their deer stands. (A deer stand is usually a ladder affixed to a tree with a sitting post at the top from which the hunter observes his surroundings). From the looks of this article, I wonder if it's possible that what they have seen is a rare sighting of a jaguar. I also, about 6 years ago, when driving home one night, saw a HUGE cat like animal run across the road (I also grew up in a rural area, though less rural than where my father's side of the family lives). This animal looked similar to a bob-cat, only much much larger -- and I could not see whether had a tail as it was getting dark at the time, but the head-lights of my vehical clearly revealed that whatever it was it was spotted similar to a bob-cat, again ~ only larger. Just thought someone might have something to say about this, as I haven't found any evidence of black or dark spotted "mountain lions" but there are such type jaguars. Omedyashar 09:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Occurrence in USA?

Are there still occasional sightings of jaguars in the USA?--Altaileopard 15:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

dangerous? not dangerous? would kill a man? whut?

why is there no mention of this at all? are jaguars dangerous, or would they run a mile from a human? have there ever been any cases of jaguars killing humans? 81.155.246.188 23:58, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

To Answer your question- Yes and No......Jaguars are obviously MORE than capable of killing any human, but there has never been an officially recorded incident since records have been taken (200 years I believe.) There are plenty of stories from Mayans and Aztecs detailing Jaguars as man-eaters and there have been unverifiable reports of rural farmers being stalked and chased, but surprisingly nothing substantial. My best advise would be to keep your distance if one is spotted, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.239.243.21 (talk) 17:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The strength of the bite

I wonder the article's statement "It has been suggested that the jaguar has the strongest bite of all felids, and the second strongest of all mammals". I guess it's to the size of the animal, for surely an orca or sperm whale can bite with a greater force. -But should we then calculate the same way how hard a rat or a shrew can bite? --88.217.54.221 23:49, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Range Maps

The green and red are not explained. Please fix...Smarkflea (talk) 10:03, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:20, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

The Map is also FALSE- Jaguars are most common in the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica than anywhere else on Earth and yet the map lists them as "extirpated" from there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.239.243.21 (talk) 17:13, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Near Threatened? How?

How is the Jaguar considered near threatened when the U.S. population of Jaguars is almost extirpated from their range and the Amazon Rainforest is still having issues with clear cutting? What are they thinking because it just doesn't add up to be correct. I would think the Jaguar would at least be considered Endangered at least I'm pretty positive in the United States it is since it's only populations now are in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico maybe southern California.Mcelite (talk) 17:27, 3 March 2008 (UTC)mcelite

  • While it locally is highly endangered or even entirely extirpated, its range is so massive that it, despite on-going deforestation in the Amazon, is quite safe overall. It also occurs within numerous protected areas - some of which are massive and alone support viable populations. RN1970 (talk) 18:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok I see what your saying. However, maybe it should be stated that in the U.S. it is listed as endangered since Jaguar populations barely exist anymore.Mcelite (talk) 01:39, 11 April 2008 (UTC)mcelite

  • A bit on its status in USA is mentioned under the sub-section Distribution and habitat, though one could argue that some of this, e.g.
The jaguar is a protected species in the United States under the Endangered Species Act, which has stopped the shooting of the animal for its pelt. In 2004, wildlife officials in Arizona photographed and documented jaguars in the southern part of the state. For any permanent population to thrive, protection from killing, an adequate prey base, and connectivity with Mexican populations are essential.[47]
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