Jaguars once lived from the southwestern United States down to Argentina. Today they live in fewer places. As of November 2026, jaguars have been found in 19 countries; long ago they lived in 21. Jaguars live in Central and South America, in places such as the Amazon.

Jaguars can live in many kinds of places, including dry ones. About 57 percent of the places where jaguars are known to occur are in the rainforest of the Amazon basin.

Jaguars need three things to live well in a place: a water supply, dense cover and enough prey. They prefer medium-to-large prey but can adapt to the animals that live in each habitat. Jaguars eat many kinds of animals, such as deer, peccaries and capybaras, and they have eaten more than 85 kinds of animals.

Where a jaguar's home floods in the wet season, the animal can use only part of it. In Brazil, jaguar home ranges are much smaller in the wet season, and only 20 to 30 percent of the dry-season range is above water.

As of November 2026, about 173,000 jaguars were estimated to live in the wild in 2018, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the jaguar as Near Threatened.

Jaguars lose forest to farms and ranches, and the forest that is left is broken into patches. The Jaguar Corridor is a plan to link the places where jaguars live, from Mexico to Argentina.

Jaguars are solitary and territorial, but the territories of males and females can overlap. Males appear to move farther than females when looking for new territories. Jaguars mark their territory by clawing trees.

A jaguar pregnancy lasts about 101 days on average. Litters range from one to four, usually two. Jaguar cubs are born with their eyes closed, and the mother raises them alone. Cubs begin walking at about 18 days old and follow their mother at about six weeks. By 15 to 18 months they can travel and hunt alone inside her range, and they are usually independent by 24 months. Few wild jaguars are known to have lived longer than 11 years, but a wild male in Arizona was recorded at 15 or older. Scientists estimate a wild jaguar lives about 10 to 15 years.

Words to know

• corridor: linking path
• solitary: living alone
• territorial: guarding an area
• litters: groups of cubs