
Team jaguar or team ocelot?
Is it a jaguar or is it an ocelot? Should be easy to tell the difference, right?
Maybe not:
Photo from Arizona Game and Fish, taken by a sportsman in late September somewhere southeast of Tucson. Experts being consulted to determine which protected species was seen. Opinions, we can only assume, must be running high.
But according to the Arizona Daily Star: “We have definitively determined that it is either a jaguar or an ocelot.”
Can I just say, I love living somewhere where jaguar (and/or ocelot) sightings make the local news? I’m sure this is exactly how DC residents feel when they wake up to panda news.
So what do you think? Jaguar or ocelot? This is obviously a heated subject, so try to keep it polite. Inflammatory comments won’t be deleted, but they may be mocked. By all species.
Here are some pictures of jaguar and ocelot tails to help you out.

Of course, it could be a mountain lion with pretensions and some fur dye. Anyone ever consider that?
I think it’s pretty clearly a jaglot.
Or just possibly an oceuar.
At least it’s definitively not a jaguarundi, which have also been reported in Arizona. You get all the cool stuff! Of course, we might too, but hardly anyone ever goes into the bootheel now apart from Border Patrol agents…
Brian: I was just thinking wistfully that a local jaguarundi would be pretty awesome.
Aren’t parts of NM also considered critical jaguar habitat now? I know there’ve been no this-century sightings, but you’re in their historical range.
I think when people rag on Arizona they need to remember that we have jaguars (and/or ocelots) and they don’t. 🙂