The Leopard And The Jaguar

Leopards and jaguars look alot alike, but they live half a world apart. The smallest of the big cats, leopards are native to Africa and Asia. At 90 to 120 pounds, they are significantly smaller than lions and tigers, and occasionally even fall prey to them.
The jaguar is native to South and Central America, and once roamed the southern United States. Jaguars are quite a bit larger than leopards, averaging 200 to 265 pounds. Both these big cats are buff to yellow to orange in color with black or dark brown spots in a classic "rosette" pattern.
Black individuals occur fairly regularly, the result of a melanism gene. The spots can still be seen on the black fur as subtle shading. Both black leopards and black jaguars are popularly called black panthers, although they are not a separate species, and black individuals will occur side by side in the same litter with normally colored cubs.
Leopards and jaguars are difficult to tell apart if the location is unknown The jaguar is generally a stouter animal with a proportionately rounder head, fuller cheeks and smaller eyes and ears. If you study photos of the two animals with these differences in mind, you can learn to identify them relatively easily.
It is sometimes stated that the leopard does not have a dot at the center of the circles of dots on its coat known as "rosettes", or that the center of the rosette on the jaguar is darker than the body color, but both jaguars and leopards vary greatly in this regard, and coat pattern is not a reliable means of identification.