This Jaguar Goes Airborne to Attack a Caiman From Above

The Amazon Rainforest is one of the most mysterious and wild places left in the world. This vast expanse of rainforest packed full of the craziest creatures in the world is still mostly unexplored. Still, there are some creatures that we all know (and love) that live within this steamy region. One of the most famous of them all is the jaguar. Jaguars may be the top predators in all of South America, and this video is plenty enough proof!

In a recent video, an incredible hunt was witnessed. In the clip, we see a jaguar, one of the top predators in the Americas, hunting a caiman, one of the most well-defended creatures in the Amazon. The result is rather remarkable.

The clip starts with a jaguar sitting on a branch, looking down into a grassy swamp pit. It’s sometimes easy to wonder how jaguars spotted pattern helps them blend into a world of green, but clips like this dispel that pretty fast. Despite knowing where the jaguar is, it’s still incredibly difficult to see as it blends into its surroundings.

With intense focus, the jaguar eyes the caiman and prepares to strike. Caimans belong to the Alligatoridae family and are closely related to the American alligator. Like their American cousins, they are heavily armored, incredibly powerful, and have a mouth full of teeth ready to tear flesh from bone. For a jaguar, however, a caiman looks like lunch!

Once the jaguar is in position, it leaps 10 feet from the tree branch directly on top of the caiman! In something that resembles a movie scene, the only things we can see are a splash of water and the ensuing struggle.

Then, only seconds later, the jaguar lifts its head from the water – holding a caiman in its jaws! The scene shows the prowess and insane strength of a jaguar, especially when you consider that it was successful on its first try.

Jaguars are the largest species of cat in the Americas and the third largest species of cat in the entire world. Part of what makes it such a formidable hunter, however, it’s its strength. While most big cats target the throat of their prey in order to slowly suffocate it, jaguars go a more direct route. When they catch their prey, they have such strong jaws that they are able to bite directly through the skull and into the brain. No waiting around for an animal to suffocate with this method!

This strength also allows them to hunt turtles and caimans incredibly well. Most big cats focus on mammals, but the jaguar’s bite allows them to target even heavily armored food sources. As can be seen in the video, all it took was a quick bite to the head to end the struggle!

Make sure that you check out the incredible video yourself! It’s not every day you see a leaping jaguar take down a deadly reptile.

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