[Aztlan] jaguars in the Basin of Mexico

[Diehl, Richard]

Hola Listeros,

In response to Travis's question, I do not know of any evidence to
support the idea that jaguars inhabited the Basin of Mexico at any time
in the past. I have always assumed it was too high, cold, and too
prey-deficient to host permanent large cat populations; but I am not an
expert. They range in far northern Mexico and into Arizona so perhaps
they may have found a home in the Basin. According to A. Starker Leopold
in his classic Wildlife of Mexico: The Game Birds and Mammals, they have
been restricted to the tropical lowlands in historic times but on
occasion solitary males range quite far from their homelands. I have
always assumed that their centrality in both highland and lowland
pre-Columbian religions was part of the Olmec legacy but not every would
necessarily agree with me. 

 

Dick Diehl