Animal · Brazil, Peru, Colombia
Ocelot
Leopardus pardalis — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The ocelot is a spotted wild cat of Central and South America, about twice the size of a house cat and marked like a small jaguar. It hunts alone after dark, and no two ocelots carry the same pattern.
Picture credit: Giles Laurent (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Giles Laurent (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the ocelot live?
Home: Rainforest, thorn scrub and marshes from Texas to Argentina.
In the wild it lives in these countries: Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Argentina.
Conservation status from the IUCN: not in danger.
The short profile
Fully grown: 55-100 cm head and body, plus a tail of 30-45 cm. It weighs about 12 kilograms. On the menu: meat.
The story behind it
Ocelots hunt after dark, padding along the same forest trails night after night in search of rats, opossums, lizards and birds. Their eyes shine gold in a torch beam, because a mirror-like layer behind the retina gathers every scrap of light. The chains of dark rings along the flanks form a pattern as individual as a fingerprint, and researchers use it to tell single cats apart on camera-trap photos. A mother usually raises one kitten at a time, and it stays with her for up to two years before finding its own patch of forest. In the last century huge numbers of ocelots were shot for their fur; the trade is banned today, but the forests they need keep shrinking.
Find it on the globe
Ocelot is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
How big is an ocelot?
Head and body measure 55 to 100 cm, with another 30 to 45 cm of tail, and most weigh between 8 and 16 kg. That makes an ocelot roughly twice the size of a house cat.
Why does every ocelot look different?
The dark rings and streaks grow in a pattern that is unique to each animal, like a fingerprint. Researchers photograph the flanks with camera traps and can recognise the same cat years later.
Is the ocelot endangered?
Across its whole range the ocelot counts as least concern, because it is still widespread in South America. In some places, such as southern Texas, only a small group is left, and clearing forest and busy roads are the main dangers.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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