A 2011 study in the journal Acta Zoológica Mexicana worked out a jaguar's maximum canine bite force from 15 adult skulls and found 681.56 newtons. That figure was worked out from skull shape with a mechanical model, so it is an estimate from skulls and not a measurement from a living jaguar.

A cat's eye has a mirror-like layer, the tapetum lucidum, that reflects light back into the retina. It nearly doubles the cat's ability to see at night. Jaguars see less detail and color in daylight but see better at night.

A fact sheet notes that eight traditional jaguar subspecies were defined by skull characteristics, but no modern genetic evidence supports them.

The oldest known American fossil assigned to the jaguar lineage is from Hamilton Cave in West Virginia and dates to about 850 to 820 thousand years ago. Some authors suggest the earliest jaguar fossils in the Americas belong to the extinct Eurasian cat Panthera gombaszoegensis; others see a distinct lineage of the jaguar, P. onca.

A study of the jaguar's subpopulations found that although a large one persists in Amazonia, virtually all others are threatened because of small size, isolation, deficient protection and high human population density. The authors of that study recommend that future IUCN Red List assessments of jaguars be done for subpopulations, not only for the whole species.

How much of its old range the jaguar still holds is estimated differently by different sources: one says 8.75 million square kilometers, or 46 percent of the historical range; another says about 63 percent. One study estimated that the jaguar's range shrank by 48 percent over the last century; using area of occupancy, the estimate was 55 percent.

As of November 2026, Panthera says no female jaguars and no breeding population have been recorded in the southwestern United States for nearly 100 years, though lone males have been recorded. Some biologists argued in 2010 that bringing jaguars back into "marginal" U.S. habitat would waste scarce federal funds that would do nothing to help jaguars in their true critical habitats in Mexico, Central and South America.

Defenders of Wildlife published two science papers in 2021. One said a 20-million-acre area of central Arizona and New Mexico could provide suitable habitat for 90 to 150 jaguars. The group says that area was not in the 2018 U.S. recovery plan, as of November 2026.

Camera-trap studies suggest jaguars can live across unprotected farmland, but only if natural areas and riparian habitat stay and hunting of jaguars and their prey is limited.

Words to know

• newtons: units of force
• subspecies: smaller kinds
• subpopulations: smaller groups
• riparian: streamside
• IUCN: nature protection group
• retina: back of eye