The jaguarundi is a wild cat native to the Americas. Its range extends from central Argentina in the south to northern Mexico, through Central and South America east of the Andes. The jaguarundi is a medium-sized cat of slender build. Its coloration is uniform with two color morphs, gray and red.
Similar species: Carnivorans
By Thibaud Aronson
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Uploaded Sep 30, 2023. Captured Aug 29, 2023 17:10 in 9VV7+XP Puerto Maldonado, Peru.
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The Hacienda Herrera has had camera traps on their trails for years, and the owners know that they basically have every Amazonian cat species visiting their forest at least occasionally, but of course they are hardly ever encountered by people. Anyway, this is how it went down:
I was finishing my bird walk for the day, and walking through the orchards that the family still maintain at the edge of the forest. To minimize the orchards' footprint, each one is quite small and they are separated from each other by strips of forest. I had just entered the last strip of forest, i.e. the one closest to the lodge, when I heard some Scarlet Macaws calling overhead. I could tell that they flew over the orchard behind me, but were obscured by the canopy of the trees. There was another pair coming, so I stepped back out at the edge of the forest to have a clear view.
And that's when I noticed that slender black cat walking out from the same forest strip, maybe 30 meters away from me. Jaguarundis aren't much bigger than a large domestic cat, but their powerful build, squarish head, and long tail give them a clear "panther" look.
I tried to keep my cool, frantically adjusting my camera settings as the jaguarundi, who clearly hadn't noticed me, walked diagonally through the orchard, on his way to the forest on the other side. I cranked my ISO as high as I dared, in order to have a decent shutter speed in the fading light (in retrospect, I could have stopped at ISO 10000 instead of 16000, and the photos would have come out better but oh well...).
I managed a few profile shots as he walking away, and then I decided to push my luck. I made a soft clucking sound, and he stopped to look at me. We stared at each other for maybe ten seconds (or ten hours, who knows), as I snapped off a few more shots, and then he continued walking, haughty as you please, just as slowly as he had before, on the exact same trajectory, and vanished into the trees.
I'm not ashamed to admit, after that I fell to my knees and thanked the Pachamama for that encounter. It will probably be years before I see another one of these... Posted one year ago, modified one year ago