A jaguar's spots are not just beautiful - they are excellent camouflage. In the dappled light of the rainforest, where patches of sunlight filter through leaves, the spots break up the jaguar's outline so that it is almost invisible. The spots are called 'rosettes' because up close they look a little like flowers, each one made up of a cluster of smaller dots.
Unlike most big cats, jaguars love water. They are very strong swimmers, regularly crossing wide rivers in search of prey. They hunt fish, turtles and even caiman (a type of crocodilian) in the water. A jaguar's bite is one of the most powerful of any cat, strong enough to crack open a turtle shell.
Jaguars are solitary animals - each one lives and hunts alone across a large territory. A male jaguar's territory might be 80 to 90 square kilometres. They mark their territory with scratch marks on trees and by leaving scent. They rarely meet other jaguars except when raising cubs.
In many Indigenous cultures across South America, the jaguar is a symbol of power, strength and wisdom. The Muisca people of the Colombian Andes had stories of jaguar-people - shape-shifters who could move between the world of humans and the world of the forest.