Natural History Wanderings

There have been three recent sightings of ocelots and one of a jaguar in southern Arizona.

Wikipedia reports:

“The ocelot (Leopardus pardalis),  also known as the dwarf leopard or McKenney’s wildcat  is a wild cat distributed over South and Central America and Mexico, but has been reported as far north as Texas and in Trinidad, in the Caribbean. North of Mexico, it is found regularly only in the extreme southern part of Texas although there are rare sightings in Southern Arizona”

“The jaguar (Panthera onca) is a big cat, a feline in the Panthera genus, and is the only Panthera species found in the Americas. The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. The jaguar’s present range extends from Southern United States and Mexico across much of Central America and south to Paraguay and northern Argentina. Apart from a known and possibly breeding population in Arizona (southeast of Tucson), the cat has largely been extirpated from the United States since the early 20th century.”

Read more about the recent sightings in the New York Times In Arizona, Rare Sightings Of Ocelots and Jaguars.