Jaguar

The jaguar (Panthera onca) is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus Panthera that is native to the Americas. Its coat features pale yellow to tan colored fur covered with spots that transition to rosettes on the sides; some individuals have a melanistic spotted coat. With a body length of up to 1.85 m (6 ft 1 in) 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.

The modern jaguar's ancestors probably entered the Americas from Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene via the land bridge that once spanned the Bering Strait. The oldest jaguar fossils found in North America date to between 0.85 to 0.82 million years ago.

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