Jaguar Hunting

Porto Jofre, Brazil, 2017

A jaguar hunts caiman along a sandy riverbank in the Pantanal. Seeing a caiman on the edge of the river, the jaguar charged down the beach and snatched the caiman before it could escape into the water. For a moment we thought we'd captured a well executed kill. Then the jaguar dropped the caiman – clearly puzzled. As it turned out, the caiman was already dead. This took the jaguar a few seconds to work out. Once he did, he looked around – as if to make sure no one caught his mistake – before grabbing his prize and hauling it off into the bush. Not exactly a hard fought meal but lunch none-the-less.