IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Olson, E.R.; Saborio R, G.; Carazo-Salazar, J. | |
| Age of the jaguar: A novel approach to evaluating the lifespan of a rare carnivore | |
| 2019 Cat News (70): 36-38 | |
The lifespan of wild jaguars _Panthera onca_ is poorly known but is assumed to be 15-16 years. Traditionally, field researchers use dentition and tooth wear to estimate the age of large felids. For jaguars, long-term monitoring using camera traps can allow researchers to estimate the minimum-years-alive (i.e., number of years between the first and last detection) of an individual based on their capture-recapture history. To evaluate the lifespan for jaguars in the wild we implemented a meta-analysis using wild jaguar ages reported in the literature. We used a combination of survival analysis and linear regression of age cohorts from different locations and different time periods. Our meta-analysis resulted in 156 individual wild jaguars (n = 62 female, n = 91 male, n = 3 unknown) with estimated ages or minimum-years-alive from eleven studies. The oldest living wild male jaguars were estimated to be 16, 19, and 20 years, and the oldest wild female jaguar was 13 years old. The mean lifespan (mean age of 10% most long-lived individuals) for jaguars was 13.6 years (ñ1.4; 95% CI). Males (14.8 ñ 1.9 years) exhibited a significantly longer mean lifespan than females (11.3 ñ 1.0 years). Linear regression of 3-year age cohorts corroborated these results, indicating that it is uncommon for jaguars to achieve more than 14 years-of-age. Survival analysis indicated that lifespan may be longer for males than for females and that once jaguars achieve 2 years-of-age they have a relatively high age-specific survival probability until they approach the expected lifespan (i.e., Type I survival curve). Our research suggests that fewer than 10% of wild jaguars live longer than 13 years, add-ing further insight into the life history of this elusive large carnivore. |
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