Leopards are the ultimate cats. They are the most feline, the most intelligent, the most dangerous and, until recently, one of the least understood. They hunt from South Africa to Siberia, from Arabia to Sri Lanka, and are the most widespread predator of their size on land. A leopard is a cat that walks by itself, unseen and secretive. Leopards are the beautiful killers that live in the shadows. This film will accumulate the evidence and put together a psychological profile of this extraordinarily cunning cat. Like all cats, the jaguar is an obligate carnivore, feeding only on meat. It is an opportunistic hunter and its diet encompasses at least 87 species. The jaguar can take virtually any terrestrial or riparian vertebrate found in Central or South America, with a preference for large prey. Unlike the Old World, occupied by its Big Cat cousins, the American tropics (which has some of the highest diversities of small animals) has relatively low populations and diversity of large ungulates which this genus favors, so the jaguar is often more of a dietary generalist that its Old World cousins. They regularly take adult caimans, deer, capybaras, tapirs, peccaries, dogs, foxes, and sometimes even anacondas. However, the cat will eat any small species that can be caught, including frogs, mice, birds (mainly ground-based species such as cracids), fish, sloths, monkeys, and turtles; a study conducted in Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary in Belize, for example, revealed the diets of jaguars there consisted primarily of armadillos and pacas. Some jaguars will also take domestic livestock, including adult cattle and horses. While the jaguar often employs the deep throat-bite and suffocation technique typical among Panthera, it sometimes uses a killing method unique amongst cats: it pierces directly through the temporal bones of the skull between the ears of prey (especially the capybara) with its canine teeth, piercing the brain. This may be an adaptation to "cracking open" turtle shells; following the late Pleistocene extinctions, armoured reptiles such as turtles would have formed an abundant prey base for the jaguar. The skull bite is employed with mammals in particular; with reptiles such as the caiman, the jaguar may leap on to the back of the prey and sever the cervical vertebrae, immobilizing the target. While capable of cracking turtle shells, the jaguar may simply smash into the shell with its paw and scoop out the flesh. When attacking sea turtles as they try to nest on beaches, the jaguar will bite at the head, often beheading the prey, before dragging it off to eat. Reportedly, while hunting horses, a jaguar may leap onto their back, place one paw on the muzzle and another on the nape and then twist, dislocating the neck. Local people have anecdotally reported that when hunting a pair of horses bound together, the jaguar will kill one horse and then drag it while the other horse, still living, is dragged in their wake. With prey such as smaller dogs, a paw swipe to the skull may be sufficient to kill it. Illustration of a jaguar killing a tapir, the largest native land animal in its range The jaguar is a stalk-and-ambush rather than a chase predator. The cat will walk slowly down forest paths, listening for and stalking prey before rushing or ambushing. The jaguar attacks from cover and usually from a target's blind spot with a quick pounce; the species' ambushing abilities are considered nearly peerless in the animal kingdom by both indigenous people and field researchers, and are probably a product of its role as an apex predator in several different environments. The ambush may include leaping into water after prey, as a jaguar is quite capable of carrying a large kill while swimming; its strength is such that carcasses as large as a heifer can be hauled up a tree to avoid flood levels. On killing prey, the jaguar will drag the carcass to a thicket or other secluded spot. It begins eating at the neck and chest, rather than the midsection. The heart and lungs are consumed, followed by the shoulders. The daily food requirement of a 34 kg (75 lb) animal, at the extreme low end of the species' weight range, has been estimated at 1.4 kg (3.1 lb). For captive animals in the 50--60 kg (110--130 lb) range, more than 2 kg (4.4 lb) of meat daily are recommended. In the wild, consumption is naturally more erratic; wild cats expend considerable energy in the capture and kill of prey, and they may consume up to 25 kg (55 lb) of meat at one feeding, followed by periods of famine. Unlike all other Panthera species, jaguars very rarely attack humans. In most of the few cases where a jaguar has turned to taking a human, the animal was either old with damaged teeth or wounded. Sometimes, if scared or threatened, jaguars in captivity may lash out at zookeepers.

• published: 28 Dec 2013
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