Just read tigrero written by sasha siemel.
What a great story. It's so sad that there is no more Jaguar hunting in brazil.

Does anyone of you know why he called the jaguar "tigre". I think that is not a common name for it, is it?

Hi,
In Argentina and I think in Brazil too we call the cougar=león (lion) and jaguar=tigre (tiger).
The same way we call avestruz (ostrich)= ñandú and perdiz (partridge)=tinamú.
The first europian the land here use the names they knew from home to name new animals.

Martin

El tigre is the name most people from Mexico on southward use to call the jaguar. It is as Martin says.

Thx. I thought tigre is not common because Tony de Almeida wrote that they never use the name tigre and said that it is called onca in brazil.

I've hunted in Paraguay, argentina, bolivia and the mato grosso, they always referred to the jaguar as tigre...

quote:

Originally posted by Caracal:
Thx. I thought tigre is not common because Tony de Almeida wrote that they never use the name tigre and said that it is called onca in brazil.

Only in Brazil the jaguar is called onca. All the other countries use "tigre".

Thank you for the enlightenment.
I will get me the other book "tiger man" as soon as possible.
Did anyone of you ever visit the pantanal? Is it still a place worth to visit and to hunt (with camera)?

quote:

Originally posted by nainital:
Only in Brazil the jaguar is called onca. All the other countries use "tigre".

"Tigre" apparently is commonly used in all Spanish-speaking countries, but I've also heard the word "jaguar" used by some people in northern Mexico. They pronounce it ha-wahr.

The Portuguese who settled Brazil apparently realized early on that jaguars have spots and not stripes and decided to borrow "onca" from the jaguar's scientific name: Panthera (or Felis) onca.

Interestingly, there is a long-standing myth about a large cat called an "onca" that supposedly roams northern Mexico. It reportedly resembles a mountain lion (puma, cougar) except that it has non-retractible claws and chevron-like markings on its legs. It also is said to be extremely aggressive toward humans.

The Lee brothers, the famous houndsmen from Arizona who hunted mountain lions and jaguars in Mexico in the 1950s and 1960s, claimed they caught and killed an onca and even published a photo of the creature.

It had been raining and the dead animal was sopping wet, so it is hard to tell anything about the animal from that photo.

Bill Quimby

Not exactly correct on Paraguay. Down there, most people use the Guarani word, jaguarete. People of Spanish descent (as opposed to the local Indians) will recognize the word tigre, but jaguarete is definitely the preferred term.