These handsome gentlemen are also part of the family at Panther Ridge Wildlife Sanctuary in Florida. This is Aztec and Zeus.

Jaguars are notorious for being very difficult to work with, especially with people that didn’t raise them from little ones. In both of these lads’ case, they were a pleasure from the moment I met them.

Admittedly, Aztec is somewhat small for a jag, weighing in at about 200lbs (91kg) by my best guess. He was a fun and social kitty, and definitely liked getting his share of scratching and petting, but Zeus, who was just as social, definitely had the brains of the family. Zeus always had on that patented feline expression where you can just look, and see the gears and wheels turning in his head. He was fun to work with, as he always seemed to anticipate what we expected and was quite eager to please. What made it funny was that he would puck up on this very quickly, and then start harassing Aztec, who wasn’t nearly so quick on the uptake.

Zeus was a very fine example of his species as well, and I’d guess was every bit of 300lbs (136kg). He was well-muscled and broad shouldered, and slinked around the cage, slipping in an out of his comfortable, jungle pond, with the grace and dignity that jaguars are known for.

Aztec and Zeus were called brothers, but they look quite a bit different even besides their sizes. In this pic, Aztec is there on the left, and Zeus on the right. Aztec is taking one of those mid-day snoozes - it’s HOT in the jungle, don’cha know? - while Zeus is trying to decide if he should come over and steal the camera from me. After all, that would lead to even more attention, wouldn’t it?

See? Told ya he was smart! :)

This picture was taken 24-Jun-07. The image was taken with a Canon EOS 10D and the EF 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 USM lens. The original was taken at full frame of 3072x2048x24b, ISO eqv 400, 1/45 shutter, f/5.6. This image was shrunken down and cropped for space conservation.

Disclaimer: I hate to have to put this on here, but the pic is copyright me. Please do not distribute, copy, alter, etc, without my permission. Having said all that, feel free to download and use it for your own inspiration.