Jaguar (Panthera onca) Fact Sheet: Managed Care

Breeding in Managed Care Settings

• Modern zoos focus on "pure species"
  • Avoid hybridization
  • Care focused on conservation and maintaining genetically "pure" species
• History of hybridization, in managed care
  • Crossed and back-crossed with the leopard
    • Jaguar karyotype almost identical to that of a leopard
    • Fertility of hybrids
      • Female offspring known to be fertile
      • Male hybrid fertility unrecorded
  • Jaguars may breed with lions
    • Known from an accidental breeding in 2006; Bear Creek Wildlife Sanctuary (Ontario, Canada)
    • Cubs may be spotted or melanistic (all black)
  • Hybrid naming conventions
    • Lepjag
      • Generic term for the hybrid offspring between leopards and jaguars
    • Leguar
      • Offspring of male leopard and female jaguar
      • Many bred as animal actors (more easily trained than jaguars)
    • Jagupard
      • Offspring of a male jaguar and a female leopard
      • One jagupard bred at Hellbrun Zoo, Salzburg, Austria
    • Jaglion
      • Offspring of a male jaguar and a female lion
    • Congolese Spotted Lion ("lijagulep")
      • Offspring of a lepjag/lion cross which occurred in 1908

History of Managed Care

• Live camera feed of the Jaguar at the Milwaukee County Zoo

Jaguar cub born at San Diego Zoo in March, 2015.

Image credit: © San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. All rights reserved.

Heart-shaped bloodsicles (frozen beef blood, beef hearts, and pieces of meet) were given to the Jaguar family as a special enrichment on Valentine's Day

Image credit: © San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. All rights reserved

Hemmer (1968)
Hsu (1962)
Pocock (1908a, b)
Seymour (1989)