One of the largest predators in the Amazon is learning to live the high life due to seasonal flooding of forests.
Jaguars (Panthera onca) have adapted to spend much of their time in trees for several months every year in the Amazon river basin.
鈥淭his behaviour is unique because we know that jaguars can swim and jaguars can climb trees. What was surprising to us is that jaguars can remain and survive on top of trees for that amount of time,鈥� says Emiliano Ramalho at the Mamirau谩 Sustainable Development Institute in Brazil.
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Ramalho works in the Mamirau谩 Sustainable Development Reserve in Brazil, an 11,240 square-kilometre area between the Amazon river and its tributary, the Japur谩 river, in the north-east of the country. The whole forest becomes seasonally flooded for three to four months every year, and some locals in the region had told Ramalho that jaguars in the area lived in trees for that period.
快猫短视频s had never reported jaguars doing this. The researchers used trail cameras to watch for this behaviour, as well as briefly capturing jaguars and equipping them with GPS tracking collars to follow them through the region during high water season to see whether they left the completely flooded area when the water level increased by as much as 10 metres. The data showed that the big cats stayed in the trees for the entire flooded season.
In this area of the Amazon, jaguars have feeding habits that might help them live in this distinct manner. While other jaguars mostly prey on medium to large land-based animals, these jaguars ambush caimans during the dry season and smaller tree species like howler monkeys and sloths throughout the year.
These cats鈥� small size may help them live in trees, says Ramalho. In the Mamirau谩, jaguars weigh only about 50 kilograms, about half that of jaguars in places further south such as the Pantanal of Brazil, where they can weigh more than 100 kilograms.
The study also highlights the diversity of jaguars in the Amazon and the significance of ecosystems like these flooded forests. 鈥淚t shows how important it is to conserve those completely flooded environments,鈥� says Rafael Hoogesteijn at Panthera, the global wild cat conservation organisation.
Ecology
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