Near Threatened · ▼ decreasing
Jaguar
Panthera onca
estimated wild adults, range-wide · as of 2018
confidence: moderate
What the number means
Range-wide modelling estimate across 34 subpopulations. Around 89% live in the Amazon basin, which is the only subpopulation considered robust; most of the other 33 are small, isolated and shrinking.
Range
Has lost roughly half of its historic range and is functionally extinct in El Salvador and Uruguay. The only Panthera species native to the Americas.
The rosette
the biggest rosette of the four — a broken ring of thick petals. The only cat on Earth with small dark spots inside the ring. If you can see dots within the rosette, it is a jaguar.
Sources for this figure
- Jędrzejewski et al., range-wide modelling study · retrieved 2026-08-19
- IUCN Red List — Panthera onca · retrieved 2026-08-19
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Rare facts
The things people don't know.
Rare fact
The jaguar has the strongest bite of any big cat relative to its size, and it kills by biting through the skull between the ears rather than by throttling the throat — a technique no other big cat uses routinely.
Source Panthera
Rare fact
Around 89% of all wild jaguars live in the Amazon basin. The remaining 33 subpopulations share roughly a ninth of the species between them.
Source Biological Conservation (Elsevier) — peer-reviewed paper
The count, as animals
A scale, not a tally.
Where you can see one
Real places, real months, honest odds.
| Place | Season | Odds | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Porto Jofre / Encontro das Águas Northern Pantanal, Brazil | Jun–Oct (dry) | Odds: very high | The best place on Earth to see a wild jaguar, by a wide margin. Boat-based viewing along the Três Irmãos and Cuiabá rivers; cats hunt caiman on open banks. Multi-day trips routinely produce several individuals. |
| Transpantaneira Highway Mato Grosso, Brazil | Jun–Oct | Odds: moderate | The 145 km dirt road into the Pantanal. Cheaper than a flotel; you drive it and stay at pousadas along the way. |
| Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary Stann Creek, Belize | Feb–May | Odds: low | The world's first jaguar preserve, established 1986. Dense forest means sightings are rare — go for the story, the tracks and the accessibility, not for a guaranteed cat. |
| Madidi & Kaa-Iya La Paz / Santa Cruz, Bolivia | May–Oct | Odds: low | Wilder, cheaper, far less visited. For the traveller who wants the Amazon more than the photograph. |
Keep going
Ask anything about the Jaguar.
Including the obscure questions. Every answer is quoted from a sourced passage, and the assistant will tell you plainly when it does not have one.