Showing posts with label Jaguar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jaguar. Show all posts

Friday, 12 January 2024

Dragon Dictate software incorrectly capitalizes 'tiger, 'lion' and 'jaguar'


Dragon Dictate, the voice to typed word software that I often use, incorrectly capitalises tiger, lion and jaguar. These are three of the big, roaring cats. They should not be capitalised as they are ordinary nouns. I suspect that the software capitalises these words because they are often used by people in circumstances when the word could be capitalised such as a sports team.

To pick one at random: Melbourne Tigers, a Melbourne basketball team. The word 'tiger' should be capitalised when used in this way.

As for the jaguar (the cat) the word is capitalised when referring to the car brand. This is probably why Dragon Dictate, by default, capitalises it. It believes the word is more used to describe the car than the cat.

As a Dragon Dictate user you have to customise the software to rectify these defects.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Thursday, 16 December 2021

Should 'jaguar' be capitalized?

No, the word "jaguar" should not be capitalized as the word is not a proper noun. It's interesting because I write these articles using speech-to-text software called Dragon Dictate. 

Dragon Dictate capitalises the word 'jaguar' and I don't understand why. It appears to be an error in the software or it is because these words are often used in a human context such as naming a sports team e.g. "the Jaguars are playing the Bobcats tomorrow". Sports teams often adopt the name of a wild cat species for their name. Under these circumstances 'jaguar' is capitalised as it refers to a proper noun: the name of a sports team.

The software also capitalises the words 'tiger' and 'lion'. But this is incorrect, strictly speaking.

Black jaguar - melanistic jaguar
Black jaguar - melanistic jaguar. Photo: The Big Cat Sanctuary from a video by them.

RELATED: Should 'veterinarian' be capitalised?

Although some authors incorrectly still capitalise tiger and jaguar. Often you will see it in old books when grammatical conventions were different. 

With respect to tigers, if you name the region then that name is capitalised such as "Siberian tiger".

An example of a sentence with the word jaguar in it would be: "The jaguar at London Zoo is beautiful".

It's important to note, though, that grammar evolves. Things change over time. The current policy is not the capitalise the names of the big cats. However, you will still see these names capitalised. It's not a big error.

The reason, by the way, is that they are not proper nouns but common nouns. You only capitalise proper nouns such as the name of a place. Common nouns refers to a generic person, place or thing within a group.

Wednesday, 30 June 2021

Jaguar gargoyles at the Basilica del Voto Nacional

I have spotted this pair of jaguar gargoyles on the largest neo-Gothic church in South America, the Basílica del Voto Nacional. The church is littered with gargoyles. It is a Noah's Ark of animals circumventing the basilica. There are goats, turtles, what appear to be sharks or ominous-looking sea creatures in addition to this pair of jaguars.

Jaguar gargoyles at the Basilica del Voto Nacional
 Jaguar gargoyles at the Basilica del Voto Nacional. Photo: in public domain.

The jaguar is a revered animal in South America. For thousands of years the people of South America have worshipped and been fearful of it. And the animal, remarkably, is still in South America including Ecuador. The basilica that I referred to is in the historic centre of Quinto, Ecuador. It is no surprise, therefore, that there are a pair of jaguars decorating the exterior of this impressive church.

READ MORE ABOUT THE JAGUAR BY CLICKING THIS LINK

The jaguar is in these countries as at July 2021: Argentina; Belize; Bolivia, Plurinational States of; Brazil; Colombia; Costa Rica; Ecuador; French Guiana; Guatemala; Guyana; Honduras; Mexico; Nicaragua; Panama; Paraguay; Peru; Suriname; United States; Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of.

Gargoyles are also called grotesques. As you can see in the photograph, they are carved out of stone very often and attached to the exterior wall of a cathedral or basilica. Architecturally they have a spout at the end farthest from the building from which rainwater is ejected having run off the roof via a channel into the gargoyle. I'm told that architects use multiple gargoyles to divide the flow of rainwater off the roof to minimise any potential damage to the building during downpours and storms. It seems that this functional aspect of a church's exterior is also combined with, in this instance, an interest in the animal and its importance to the culture of society in which the church is located.

The basilica remains unfinished as local legend says that when the Basílica is completed, the end of the world will come. One of those myths which they have kept going. Similar myths surround the jaguar in the minds of many because they are, powerful, mysterious and often black being melanistic.

Sunday, 28 February 2021

Male jaguar kills female jaguar when put together at a Florida zoo. Why?

Harry and Zenta were two jaguars at Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens. Harry is still alive and he is twelve years old. He killed the female jaguar, Zenta, who was twenty-one years old. A mistake was made. They were both put into a holding complex. 

Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens
Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens poster featuring a jaguar. Is this Harry? Photo: Jacksonville
and Gardens.

Harry was put there for examination. The mistake was putting them together. Keepers tried to separate them unsuccessfully. As Harry attacked Zenta, they tried to immobilise him. I presume this means tranquilizing. They were unsuccessful and he killed the female who had arrived at Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens in 2006 they rescued animal from a private zoo. Harry was born at the zoo in 2009.

Comment: the question that I have is ,why did the male jaguar kill the female? In the wild male and female jaguar's meet to mate and reproduce. Roaring may function to bring them together for mating purposes. Females can end up being accompanied by several males. But I can't find any reports of male jaguar's killing female jaguars.

I will have to come to my own conclusion as the zookeepers at Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens don't tell us why Harry wanted to kill Zenta. There were probably two overlapping factors. Both were captive, living in confined spaces much smaller than the amount of space they naturally require in the wild which would be something in the order of up to 152 km² for a male jaguar. Females require less space but still vastly larger than is available at a zoo. This probably constantly stressed both the male and female. 

In the wild, female home ranges can be within the home ranges of male jaguars which sometimes overlap. I would suspect that stresses built up because the natural social organisation of these big cats was completely disturbed by their captivity. 

The male wanted to get rid of the female because she was on his territory and competing for that territory. This is my assessment. I may be completely wrong but it is the only possible assessment, I believe. This was about territory and ownership of it. It didn't matter whether they were male and female or male and male.

Tuesday, 29 September 2020

You cannot say that all cats hate water!

I have to confess that I have become a little bit frustrated and perhaps irritated by a large number of articles on the Internet which state with complete confidence that cats hate water. They are generalising about all cats. You can't generalise like that. You have to drill down and analyse the situation in far more detail.

The originan Van kittens swimming. Please click this link to read about the real Turkish Van

Firstly, you have to decide whether you are referring to cats walking outside in the rain and getting wet or whether you are describing bathing a cat or a cat falling into a bath or pond. When a cat, and I'm referring to a domestic cat in this instance, is submerged in water they will in general dislike it. You can pretty well bank on that. But it depends upon the individual cat as to how much they dislike it. Some may hate it and some may simply put up with it while others will love being in the bath.

Rain

However, you have to compare that situation with being out in the rain. We know that in the UK 99% of cats go outside whenever they like through a cat flap. They might go out in the rain. My cat actually goes out when it's raining sometimes. Clearly the rain does not perturb him. Or he is caught in a downpour and comes in soaking wet. It doesn't worry him particularly. Therefore this is, at least, one cat who does not hate water. He just doesn't mind getting wet.

So among the domestic, random bred cats you will find individual cats who might even like water and those who are ambivalent about it and those who dislike it or even hate it. There is a full spectrum of personalities which affects how they relate to getting wet.

Turkish Van

Then you have the cat breeds. There is quite a lot of talk about the Turkish Van swimming in water and liking it. This is a bit of a myth (see picture and link above). All the current Turkish Van cats in Turkey are random bred cats and they will behave just like random bred cats in America or the UK or anywhere else when it comes to getting wet. The person who started the Turkish Van breed was an English lady and she was driving home from Turkey with some cats and they went for a swim in a lake. This does not mean that all Turkish Van cats like to swim in ponds or lakes.

Maine Coon

I read somewhere that the Maine Coon cat likes to swim as well. This is a myth if you've heard it. In general, purebred cats will be no different to random bread cats in this respect.

The wildcat hybrids are much more likely to like or accept getting wet. Photo: in public domain.

Wild cat hybrids

You have to mention the wild cat hybrids. These cats such as the Savannah and Bengal have serval and Asiatic leopard cat DNA in them respectively to varying degrees depending on their filial. This affects their character and their relationship with water. Both the higher filial variants of these breeds are much more amenable to getting wet and even going into showers than the average random bread or purebred cat. 

This is because the serval and the Asiatic leopard cat live in wetter landscapes. The serval lives in and around watercourses and the Asiatic leopard cat lives in rainforests. They are habituated to wetter landscapes and climates. This has been brought forward in their DNA as a form of memory which has been embedded into the characteristics of these two wild cat hybrid domestic cats. That's why they accept or even like water.

Wild Cats

And then if you're talking about cats in general you must talk about the wild cat species. The tiger loves water and spends a lot of time in it. They are great swimmers and can swim in the open sea for miles. The jaguar in South America loves water and spends time in it as well. The small wild cat species, the fishing cat, spends most of its time in and around watercourses where it, yes, fishes. 

There are other the small cat species such as the flat-headed cat which also spends a lot of time on river banks near water. The Geoffroys' cat dives into water to hunt so once again a small wild cat looking much like the domestic cat likes water. All these species actively get into the water and therefore don't mind being wet. You can never say that "all cats hate water". Please don't do it! Rant over.

Saturday, 31 March 2012

Escaped Melanistic F1 Savannah in Scotland?

There might be an escaped F1 melanistic Savannah cat roaming around Scotland, near St. Andrews. I'll tell you why it is a possibility.

The local press is talking about a black "big cat" on the loose (see Fife Today). The word "big cat" is used loosely to! Because a father and son were out for a walk near St. Andrews when from a distance of 35 feet (fairly close so the sighting was good) they saw "a big black cat". It was the size of a small Labrador they added.

There is a difference between a "big black cat" and a "black big cat"! Big cats are usually one of the top four biggest wildcats: jaguar, leopard, lion and tiger.

A genuine black big cat is likely to be a melanistic leopard or jaguar (euphemistically called black panthers). These are large animals considerably larger than a normal or large labrador.

Labradors vary in size but at the shoulder a small Labrador might be about 21 inches tall. The world's tallest domestic cat was at one time Magic, an F1 Savannah cat that was 17.1 inches at the shoulder. The male serval, the father of an F1 Savannah cat is considerably bigger but smaller than the leopard or jaguar.

There is at least one Savannah cat breeder in Scotland: Wild Cat Breeder. They don't say where they are on their website. However, servals and Savannah cats are able to escape. Melanism can occur at anytime. It is a genetic mutation that affects the coat and nothing else.

We are not talking about big cats in the conventional sense. Newspapers like to talk things up. But the observations of a large black cat roaming around St. Andrews, if the observations are faithful, might be sightings of a melanistic F1 Savannah cat or perhaps a serval as both these cats are in Scotland, albeit in captivity. They are the correct size based on the best sighting referred to above.

See also Big Cats in the UK.


Tuesday, 22 November 2011

Wild Cats of South America

A list of the wildcats of South America in a spreadheet plus range map details and links to more. The wildcats are, in descending order of size: jaguar, puma, ocelot, jaguarundi, Geoffroy's cat, Andean mountain cat, margay, pampas cat and oncilla. Please go to the wild cat species page to see the wildcats of the world.



Selected associated pages:

Jaguar Photograph

This is a great jaguar photograph. It was taken by an automatic camera that is sensitive to movement: a motion activated camera trap. Correct placement is important obviously. In this instance it seems that it was placed on a well used trail in a forest in Peru. The jaguar lives in a variety of tropical and subtropical habitats.

I have worked on the image quite a lot. It has been sharpened a bit and the color made more saturated. It has also been cropped to a squarish format and text added to give the image a poster feel. I also retouched out two cables that were straddling across the undergrowth behind the jaguar. These adjustments are allowed under the creative commons license, for which I thank Smithsonian Wild.



This a really nice jaguar picture now. I think it works well. I hope you do too. I love the intensity in the eyes and the purposeful walk. Note: I have donated $35 to the Smithsonian Institute for the use of this photo.

The jaguar (Panthera onca) lives in Central and South America. It is the largest in all of the Americas. It is the third largest wildcat on the planet. The jaguar is a very burly cat. It is closely related to and similar in appearance to the leopard but it is heavier than the leopard.

The jaguar has a large head and short powerful limbs. The jaguar spots are rosettes; sometimes with a black spot in the center. These rosettes become solid spots on the limbs and undersides.

The jaguar varies in size over its range. Some are twice the size of others. This is due to prey availability. The average weight of this cat in Central America is 56 kilograms (123 lbs - pounds).  Male jaguars in the Pantanal region of Brazil average 102 kilograms however (224 lbs).

Read more about the beautiful and impressive jaguar.

Saturday, 29 October 2011

Are tigers in South America?

There are no tigers, in the wild, in South America. The largest wildcat in South America is the jaguar. The jaguar is a large cat and the third largest wildcat after the tiger and the lion.

You will be able to see tigers in zoos etc. in South America. The only tigers in South America are captive tigers. There are many zoos in South America. There are probably tigers at the Municipal Zoological Park Quinzinho de Barros in the municipality of Sorocaba. This is a major Brazilian zoo.

Tuesday, 18 October 2011

Are cougars and panthers the same?

The word "panthers" is usually used in the phrase "black panthers", meaning large black wild cats. The word "panther" is a generic word and not a scientific term meaning large wild cat. Whereas "cougar" is one of the many words describing the puma, which is the technically more correct word for the mountain lion. There are other names for this large wild cat.

Cougars can be black panthers. Black cougars will be melanistic cougars which are cougars that have turned black or very dark charcoal grey due to the presence of a recessive gene.

The word panther is also used to describe the jaguar or leopard especially black coated jaguars and leopards when as mentioned they are referred to as black panthers.

The generic word "panther" is never used to describe the lion or tiger.

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