Its favorite hunting strategy is to lie in wait in branches and pounce on its victim. The jaguar s major prey includes tapirs, deer, monkeys, and capybara, but it will eat almost any vertebrate. Occasionally, it is able to catch sloths when they make one of their infrequent descents to the forest floor. The heavy jaws and large facial muscles of the jaguar give it one of the most powerful bites of any cat. The most water-loving of the cats, they can cross wide rivers and capture prey in the water.
Keystone species are critically important to others in the community.
Their removal causes dramatic changes for other species, altering the balance in the community. Jaguars have distinctive spots. In the rainforest, this serves as an advantage. The spotted pattern moving through the sun-flecked light and alternating shadow becomes less of an obvious physical outline, thereby disguising the jaguar as it stealthily moves across the forest floor. Jaguars are normally solitary.