Watch Black Jaguar Get Frisky On Camera In World-First Footage

In world-first footage, researchers have captured a wild black-coated jaguar mating with a spotted jaguar deep in the Brazilian Amazon. The big cats are notoriously elusive, hence this latest breakthrough provides much-needed insight into their courtship and mating interactions, which could inform future conservation strategies.

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“We hit the proverbial jackpot and captured the first ever video trap footage of a black jaguar mating with a spotted male in the wild,” Professor Carlos Peres, from the University of East Anglia’s School of Environmental Sciences, said in a statement.

“The six-minute sequence reveals courtship and copulation, and if they’d moved a few meters we would have missed everything!”

The pair – a melanistic (black-coated) female and a spotted male – were caught on camera in Serra do Pardo National Park in the Brazilian Amazon on September 6, 2023. Not only was it the first time that these different jaguar (Panthera onca) color morphs were seen copulating in the wild, it also marked the first scientifically verified observation of a melanistic jaguar mating in its natural habitat.

Jaguars are solitary cats (though they do have BFFs) with extensive home ranges and limited male-female interactions – all of which makes documenting mating behavior in the wild incredibly difficult. Before now, almost everything we knew about this mysterious part of their lives had been gleaned from observations in captivity.

“Despite the vast size of the Pan-Amazon region, we still know surprisingly little about many of its species – especially how they behave in the wild. This footage not only adds to our understanding of jaguars, but also underscores how much remains to be discovered about the everyday lives of Amazonian wildlife,” Peres added.

The frisky felids mated not just once but twice, meaning the team got to witness two full sequences of courtship and copulation behavior – which was remarkably similar to what has been previously documented in captivity. The six minutes of footage captured nine out of 12 known mating phases, suggesting behavioral consistency across both environments and color morphs.

The researchers also noticed that the female appeared to show signs of lactation, including swollen nipples, potentially indicating she was not in true estrus. Instead, she may have been using a “hide-and-flirt” strategy whereby lactating females engage in mating behaviours while concealing their young to confuse paternity or reduce the risk of infanticide.

“What surprised us most was how closely the wild behaviour mirrored what’s been observed in zoos,” said Post Doctor Thomas Luypaert from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. “It suggests that some aspects of jaguar courtship may be deeply conserved.”

However, the study authors are quick to caution that this single observation should not be used to make broad conclusions about the species and that further observations are necessary to understand if this behavior is common in the wild beyond these two individuals.

Still, the more we know about jaguar behavior, the better. The species is listed as “Near Threatened” on the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species, and captive breeding programs are a crucial component of conservation efforts, though they need refining to help secure the big cat’s future.

“Understanding how jaguars behave in their natural environment is essential, not just for science, but for improving conservation and breeding programs worldwide,” Luypaert added. “Every new insight into jaguar behaviour helps us protect them better. These animals are under pressure, and we need all the information we can get.”

The study is published in the journal Ecology and Evolution.