NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 253 



regions from south-central Argentina northward to southern 

 United States. With the general appearance of a leopard, 

 having a yellowish ground color marked with black spots or 

 circles of spots, the jaguar is slightly heavier of build than a 

 leopard, with a more massive head and relatively shorter tail. 

 The color pattern is variable, but usually at least some of the 

 rosettes of black spots have a central spot in the jaguar, which 

 is absent in the leopard. The authors mentioned have given 

 descriptions of no less than 16 local races of jaguar over the 

 wide range covered by the species as a whole. The characters 

 on which these are based are usually not striking and depend 

 largely on slight peculiarities in the skull. Of the 16 races, 

 five occur in North America, the others in South America. 

 Concerning most of these, information is rather scanty and in 

 general, although jaguars are frequently hunted wherever they 

 come into proximity of man, there is little to indicate that they 

 have been effectively depleted in numbers except perhaps in 

 the regions of thickest settlement. Since the two forms that 

 occur along the southwestern border of the United States have 

 probably become much reduced in numbers and in the extent 

 of the country they occupy, they^may be included together here. 



ARIZONA JAGUAR 

 FELIS ONCA ARIZONENSIS Goldman 



Felis onca arizonensis Goldman, Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington, vol. 45, p. 144, Sept. 9, 



1932 ("Near Cibecue, Navajo County, Arizona"). 



NORTHEASTERN JAGUAR 

 FELIS ONCA VERAECRUCIS Nelson and Goldman 



Felis onca veraecrucis Nelson and Goldman, Journ. Mammalogy, vol. 14, p. 236, Aug., 



1933 ("San Andres, Tuxtla, Vera Cruz, Mexico"). 

 FIG.: Nelson, 1916, colored fig. on p. 413. 



These two races of the jaguar are characteristic, respectively, 

 of the subtropical areas of the "mountainous parts of eastern 

 Arizona north to the Grand Canyon, southern half of western 

 New Mexico, and northeastern Sonora, " and the "Gulf slope 

 of eastern and southeastern Mexico from the coast region of 

 Tabasco north through Vera Cruz and Tamaulipas to central 

 Texas." Their ranges are therefore separated by the high 

 tableland of north -central Mexico. The race arizonensis is a 



