*People love dogs and cats the world over. I’d say, overall, dogs are ahead as far as lovable pets go but that doesn’t mean that cats are far behind. However, out in the wild, there are WAY more cats than dogs and wild cats, otherwise known as big cats, make wild dogs look like house cats. They’re pretty damn cool though, whether they’re huge or just a bit bigger than domestic cats. I think I owe it to you all to list some of the more dangerous and deadly big cats across the globe.
So, in honor of those dangerous, furry, cuddly cats, a list…
JAGUAR (Panthera onca)
SIZE: 5-6 FT 125-300LBS
The Jaguar (and we ain’t talking cars here, folks) can call the lion, tiger and leopard family. Not only is it the third largest cat in the world, it’s the biggest in the New World otherwise known as the Western Hemisphere (big cats in Africa, Asia and India are considered part of the Old World).
And check this out: jaguars tend to get bigger the further south you go. That means, stay out of South America, especially places like Argentina and Uruguay probably wouldn’t be nice places to go prancing around in the rain forest. You wouldn’t want to meet a jaguar either because, pound for pound, it’s got the most powerful bite of the family. Fortunately for you, jaguars rarely attack humans.
What it does attack is pretty damn impressive, however. In the picture above, he’s got a tasty caiman (a South American crocodile relative) in his mouth meaning he can kick some major ass. In addition to caimans, jaguars will kill capybaras (largest rodents in the world), deer, tapirs (one of the weirdest looking mammals in the world), turtles, mice, birds, frogs, dogs, peccaries (a kind of pig), dogs, foxes, monkeys, and, my favorite one of all, anacondas.
Anything that can hunt an anacanda is a gangsta. Period. End of discussion.
LEOPARD (Panthera pardus)
SIZE: 3-6FT 80-200LBS
The leopard is the baby of the family, being that it’s the smallest. This doesn’t give you a pass to provoke the thing but I’m just stating the facts here. There’s not too many of these around because we keep murdering them as always but they’re primarily in Africa but some leopard species still call parts of Asia, India and Pakistan home.
While you may think leopards look like jaguars and vice versa, the rosette patterns on the leopard lack the inside patterns the jaguar possesses. Remember that and also that it’s smaller. Another thing to know: the mystical “black panther” is really a melanistic leopard or jaguar, not a panther (aka mountain lion, cougar)).
On to the fun part: what they eat. Leopards don’t have quite the magnitude of their bigger family members but it makes up for it in other ways. It will prey upon a variety of different creatures big and small including ungulates (hoofed mammals), rodents, monkeys, fish and reptiles. The key difference here is that a jaguar, unlike any other cat in the fam, can drag prey up to three times its own body weight up a tree.
When it comes to us, leopards will try to avoid humans. However, they’ve been known to be vicious hunters of man in the past. The legendary Indian leopard, Leopard of Penar, was said to have killed over 400 men. There have been other stories of leopards killing over 100 people. Not good, says I.
MOUNTAIN LION/COUGAR/PUMA (Puma concolor)
SIZE: 5-9FT (head to tail) 115-160LBS
The mountain lion is not a true lion but whoever saw it first thought it looked pretty damn close to a lioness and accordingly named it “lion of the mountain”. A lot of people think cougars and pumas are a different animal than the mountain lion but these people are wrong. All three are one in the same but the cat was lucky enough to get three cool sounding names. At least, I dig them all.
If you want to know how adaptable these guys are, they’ve got the largest geographical range of ANY land animal in the entire Americas. Talk about flexibility, a mountain lion lives in any environment from dense brushes to mountains and deserts. Funny thing is, cougars get smaller near the equator and larger at the poles. Weird, huh?
As the fourth largest cat in the world, pumas eat a very wide range of things, with its most important prey being deer, at least for the majority of the ones in North America. Their South American counterparts tend to drift towards rodents and other smaller sized mammals. But, again, being the flexible cats that they are, mountain lions will eat just about anything it can catch.
Like most attacks from big cats, cougar attacks on humans is a rare occurrence. However, the more we take over their habitat, the more they want to bite us. Do you blame them? Check it: between 1890-1990 there were 53 mountain lion attacks. From 1990-2004 there were 35. Big, big, BIG difference. We’re to blame. As always. Just don’t take your kids hunting in puma territory. Just about every attack on children turns out to be fatal. But I’d imagine you, as the parent, would be liable for that.
LION (Panthera leo)
SIZE: 5 1/2-8FT 330-550LBS
Ah, the mighty king of the jungle. He of the Lion King, one of Disney’s greatest masterpieces of all time. Lions are one of the most beloved creatures on earth, adored by the masses all over the planet. It’s interesting how such a murderous cat can be so loved but hey, that’s people.
The majority of lions inhabit Africa but some still patrol parts of India but they’re called Asiatic lions, different from the lions we all know and love, the African lion. Interestingly, lions are one of the only social group of cats and of course, unique in that the lionesses (females) do the hunting while the king of the jungle lays back and chills. And he still gets first on the grub.
Although lions can run up to 40mph, they can only do so for a short amount of time because their stamina is very, very low. This may also be a reason they hunt in packs, to give them a better chance at a kill. However, in the eating world, lions got tons of range, BIG RANGE. As in, they devour BIG animals. Overall, the wildebeest is one of the most sought after meals for the lion but they can take down anything such as antelopes, zebras, buffalo, giraffes and yes, even elephants. In fact, there’s a group of lions that primarily prey on elephants, taking them out at night when the big beasts’ vision is terrible. And yet another group of lions along the coast feed exclusively on seals. Yep, lions don’t screw around when it comes to eating.
Well, well, well, Mr. Lion, do you like to eat people? Why, yes he does! Not that lions purposely hunt humans, although there have been some rare cases (The Ghost and the Darkness is a movie based on two lions of this nature) but since people seem to venture closer and closer to lions, there seems to be more and more cases of lions eating them. Some researchers report that lions kill over 200 Tanzanians a year and from 1990-2005, at least 563 villagers were attacked, many eaten, around Tanzania. There’s a lesson to be learned from these facts:
DON’T GO TO AFRICA
TIGER (Panthera tigris)
SIZE: 7-10FT 400-700LBS
Funny how the final two big cats aren’t only the most popular but the biggest and the baddest, the tiger being the largest of the cat family by a fairly wide margin. At least, the Siberian tiger (largest cat in the world) can claim this since it is the largest and the heaviest.
There are only about 4000 of these huge cats left in the wild where they only call the continent of Asia their hometown. Here’s something you probably didn’t know: tiger stripes are as distinct on tigers as fingerprints are to humans, creating a much easier way for scientists and researchers to track the striped felines.
Though it may be heavier and bigger than its cousin, the African lion, tigers usually will prey on animals smaller than what lions are accustomed to. This isn’t to say that tiger prey is small, however. It’s got a wide range of creatures it eats including antelopes, guar (large wild cattle), deer, boar, but more impressive are the pythons, leopards, sloth bears and crocodiles it occasionally finds appetizing. Once you’ve claimed pythons, leopards, bears and crocodiles as food, you’re absolutely not be to screwed with. EVER.
Well, there’s a reason I got the tiger down here. It’s because, over history, the tiger has killed more humans than any other big cat but it’s more due to increasing population than a thirst for the flesh of homo sapiens. A particular location of India called the Sundarbans mangrove swamps, tiger attacks have increased so much that villagers wear masks on the back of their heads when moving through the mangroves because tigers generally attack from behind and tend to not do so when faced. Another lesson here:
DON’T GO TO INDIAN MANGROVE SWAMPS
