Ocelot

The ocelot is a medium-sized wildcat native to a wide range spanning from southern Texas through Central America and much of South America, patterned with dark rosettes and stripes over a tawny-yellow coat that provides camouflage in dense forest and scrub. About twice the size of a large domestic cat, it is a skilled climber and swimmer but hunts mainly on the ground, taking small mammals, birds, reptiles and fish under cover of night. Ocelots are solitary and strongly territorial, marking and defending home ranges that can be substantially larger for males than females, and they were historically heavily hunted for their attractive fur before international trade protections were introduced in the 1980s. The species remains fairly widespread across much of Latin America, though populations in the United States are critically small and endangered due to habitat fragmentation from roads and development. Camera trap studies have made the ocelot one of the more closely monitored small wildcats in conservation research.