All rights to these images are reserved. Educational use permitted. Ocelots hunt at night and spend the day resting in brush so thick that the only way a person can move through it is by crawling. Females prepare a den for their kittens in thick brush.
Mothers leave at night to hunt, but spend each day with their kittens at the den.
The kittens begin hunting with their mother when they are about 3 months old. They stay with her until they are about a year old. About 30 to 35 ocelots live in the shrublands remaining at or near the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge near Brownsville, Texas.