"He told us, `What's the point of saving a car company, if the animal it's named after goes extinct?'" Rabinowitz recalled. Whether the car is suitably named is open to question. As field researchers have learned, jaguars are neither fast nor graceful. "They remind me of fire hydrants," Rabinowitz said. "They're incredibly stocky and built close to the ground."
They are, however, the embodiment of power. Although smaller than the other great cats overall, the jaguar has a comparatively huge head and the strongest jaw for its size, capable of pulverizing bone. Its paws are broad and its claws gothic.
The jaguar hunts by stealth and kills by leaping on an animal's back and crushing its neck. In one South American language, the word for jaguar means "the wild beast that can kill its prey in a single bound." Should the prey manage to dart away, the jaguar rarely chases it. In sum, the jaguar has evolved a two-pronged approach to dinner -- stay virtually invisible until the last possible moment and then deliver an overwhelming blow.
Yet for all its ferocity of mien, the jaguar is something of a dandelion around humans. It is the least likely of the Pantheras to attack a person unprovoked, and, in contrast with tigers, lions and even pumas, it has never been documented as a man eater.
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