North American jaguar

The **North American jaguar** (*Panthera onca augusta*), also known as the **giant jaguar** and the **Pleistocene jaguar** (named after the time it originally lived in), is a subspecies of jaguar that originally lived in North America during the Pleistocene epoch (1.8 mya–11,000 years ago) and was once extinct, but bas since been brought back from extinction by SciiFii and reintroduced throughout North America to help boost biodiversity. It is much bigger than the South American jaguars, growing to be about 15 to 20% larger, with the shoulder height of 2.9 feet (0.9 meters) tall, the length of 5.9 feet (1.8 meters) long, and the weight of about 150 kilograms. The legs are about 6% longer, with the forefeet and hindfeet being about 9.5% longer. It is an apex predator, meaning it is one of many predators at the top of the food chain and is not preyed upon in the wild. The North American jaguar has also been termed a keystone species, as it controls the population levels of prey such as herbivorous and granivorous mammals, and thus maintains the structural integrity of forest systems. Like all "natural" cats, the North American jaguar is an obligate carnivore, feeding only on meat. It is an opportunistic hunter, and its diet encompasses at least 100 species. The North American jaguar has an exceptionally powerful bite that allows it to pierce the shells of armored prey. Like the South American jaguars, the North American jaguars are also known to dive into the water to cool down and/or to hunt for aquatic animals such as fish. The activity patterns of the jaguar have been found to coincide with the activity of their main prey species in their biomes. The North American jaguars primarily have a crepuscular–nocturnal activity pattern in all the biomes that they are found in; however North American jaguars have been recorded to have considerable diurnal activity in thickly forested regions of the Everglades and the New Orleans, as well as purely nocturnal activity in other regions such as the eastern North American forests. The North American jaguar is a stalk-and-ambush rather than a chase predator. The cat will walk slowly down forest paths, listening for and stalking prey before rushing or ambushing. The North American jaguar attacks from cover and usually from a target's blind spot with a quick pounce; the species' ambushing abilities are considered nearly peerless in the animal kingdom by both native people and field researchers, and are a product of its role as an apex predator in several different environments. The ambush may include leaping into water after prey, as a North American jaguar is quite capable of carrying a large kill while swimming; its strength is such that carcasses as large as a heifer can be hauled up a tree to avoid flood levels in areas where water levels rises quickly. After killing prey, the North American jaguar will drag the carcass to a thicket or other secluded spot. It begins eating at the neck and chest, rather than the midsection. The heart and lungs are consumed, followed by the shoulders. The North American jaguars are solitary animals in most of their lives except during breeding seasons, and the North American jaguars have the same reproduction and lifecycle to the South American jaguars. The conservation status of the North American jaguar is **Least Concern** due to successful conversation efforts, the North American jaguar's wide natural range and its tolerance to many of the human activities.