The jaguar (Panthera onca), is a very large species of cat native to the Americas. While there were a number of large cat species present in the Americas up until the end of the last ice age, most of these disappeared many thousands of years ago — the jaguar is one of the only ones remaining, and the only Panthera species native to the Americas in recent times.

The species actually, until only very recently, had a much more expansive range though — and was found as far north as Missouri and as far east as Louisiana until relatively recently. The southern borders of the jaguar’s range in South America have receded in recent times as well, retracting to the species’s densest populations in the Amazon.

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