well, this post come to the light again, it was missed for a while! great pictures all of them!! I congratulate you for this extraordinary work!! How about “Diane” for the name of the female and “Ody” for her gorgeous cub? Statistics are an important part in conservation! Thank you for this great Blog!

“Oh,are you alive?”, gotta love it! Great pictures, really beautiful cub. Now see, I didn’t know jaguar cubs could be black ( I’m guessing close up would reveal rosettes pattern?). Truly looking forward to seeing the ocelot pics. Lovely puma in good condition. Thank you!

Fantastic post. Extraordinary photos. I say we should give your guys some celebrity names - Shakira for the female and de Niro for the melanistic cub. Then, lets hit these guys up for donations to save their namesakes! Your writing is wonderful. Keep it coming.

Hi Theresa, the rosettes pattern view, in black jaguars and leopards, depends more of the light angle over the animal´s body than from the distance it is from the observer. The jaguars comes in two colour phases in their natural habitat, but black ones are more common in dense jungle habitat, just as it happens with leopards in Africa and Asia. Even the jagoarundi has two colour phases, brown and black, being the brown one the commonest.

About the names for this big cats…well, you can give them the name that you want, but please, those names must be at the stature of such magnifficent creatures! Like the names of other jaguars that have died in captivity after a lifetime doing people to know about this species and its struggle for survival, like Yago and War, or a name of some outstanding scientist working in the preservation of wildlife worldwide, or the name of some native Gods of the neighboring area tribes, including ancient Gods, etc. But please, any names that actually offend this awesome big cats!

Thanks F.J. Now dare I ask this question, any cases of a jaquar and puma mating in the wild?

Thank you Mr. Pechir!
Let’s see what names come out! We want you readers to be part of it. Dr. Alan Rabinowitz in his early works on Belize use to give names of ancient Gods to the jaguar that he studied in there. Here you people will be the one to choose! So, dear friends listen Mr. Pechir about the names: Think on struggle to survival, think on eyes hunting in the dark, think in silent steps in the forest…

Dear Theresa,
There is a few records from pumas and jaguars mating, but just in captivity. Also the specie aparenttly can mate with leopards in captivity. In the eighties a private collection in Frech Guiana record mate between a puma and a ocelot raised together in capitivity. Well, evolutionary process are undeniable. As they are very different species all cubs from the four litters died.

Yes, very sad, when man interferes with nature. Ligers, Tigons, etc. Just look at certain dog and cat breeds…the health problems associated with manipulation of genes.

Dear Theresa, our dear friend Fernando is absolutely right. All big cats can mate in captivity and even produce litters that grow to the adulthood, but they all are sterile. In the wild each species of wild cats mate independently. I don´t know about the names that Dr. Alan use with his jaguars, but then my idea was not so bad. I use the name of special places and ancient Gods, demons and spirits for my dogs.

Well, I was originally thinking of Bella for the mama-cat because she is sooooo beautiful but due to your request, I did a little research… How about Quilla after Mama Quilla, the Incan moon goddess? She also was highly regarded for her exquisite beauty and is credited w/2 children, Manco (king) and Pacha (creator of the world). I’m rather fond of Pacha. I’ve included the link to the Wikipedia entry-of course, I’m not sure how accurate the information is. I find the mythology of the dark spots fairly fitting for a jaguar. Thank you for all the wonderful pictures and work that you do! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mama_Quilla

Dear Elizabeth,
Your research to find a good name is inspiring!!! Thank you very much for that!