IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group Library

IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library

View printer friendly
N£¤ez, R.; Miller, B.; Lindzey, F.
Food habits of jaguars and pumas in Jalisco, Mexico
2000 Journal of Zoology (252): 373-379
Jaguars (_Panthera onca_) and pumas (_Puma concolor_) are sympatric over much of their geographic range in Mexico and South and Central America. We investigated diets of these felids in and around the Chamela- Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve in western Jalisco, Mexico. Diets were determined from scat analyses and documentation of prey cadavers. Relative biomass of each prey species consumed by pumas and jaguars was estimated from analysing 65 puma and 50 jaguar scats collected from 1995 to 1998. Both jaguars and pumas fed mainly on mammals, with white-tailed deer (_Odocoileus virginianus_) dominating the biomass of the diet of each species (54% and 66% respectively). There was a high degree of overlap between jaguar and puma diets, but pumas had a broader food niche than jaguars, and their ability to exploit smaller prey may give them an advantage over jaguars when faced with human-induced habitat changes.
	PDF files are only accessible to Friends of the Cat Group. Joining Friends of the Cat Group gives you unlimited access and downloads in the Cat SG Library for one year, and allows you to receive our newsletter Cat News (2 regular issues per year plus special issues). More information how to join here