I wrote a report for school , and daddy made me put it on here.
The jaguar, Panthera Onca, is the third largest in the family of felines. In the new world, where it is native , it is the largest. A healthy, full-grown Brazilian tom might measure more than 8 feet from its nose to the tip of its tail and average a weight of about 15 to 225 pounds, whereas the female averages around 70 to 90 pounds. The average litter size of a jaguar is one to four cubs; the cubs are born blind and generally remain in the den where they were born for up to six months. At the age of three, the jaguar cubs leave their mother to find territories of their own because adults are solitary. The average life expectancy for a jaguar in the wild is 15 to 20 years and in captivity they can live longer.
The least studied and therefore the least understood of all the big cats is also the most nocturnal, their high activity levels are at dawn and dusk. They are great tree climbers and are very strong swimmers, and are more likely to be heard than seen. The Jaguar is known to prey on more than 85 species and can kill most of its prey with one bite through its skull or neck. Jaguars, now extinct in the far north of the US, have small populations in southern and central Mexico.
