Leopardus pardalis
The ocelot is a medium-sized spotted wild cat that reaches 40–50 cm (16–20 in) at the shoulders and weighs between 7 and 15.5 kg on average. It is native to the southwestern United States, Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Margarita. Carl Linnaeus scientifically described it in 1758. Two subspecies are recognized.

Giles Laurent · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- ocelotPBDB
- Sits inside
- LeopardusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Felidae
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
- Mass
- 13.5 kgWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 2 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 14 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
14 occurrences of Leopardus pardalis on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
14 occurrences- Pleistocene77%
- Holocene23%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
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The named rock units Leopardus pardalis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 12 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Leopardus pardalis and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Leopardus pardalis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
343 taxa- Panthera onca7 sites
- Pecari tajacu7 sites
- Puma concolor7 sites
- Puma yagouaroundi6 sites
- Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris5 sites
- Smilodon populator5 sites
- Cuniculus paca4 sites
- Eira barbara4 sites
- Oryzomys4 sites
- Sciurus4 sites
- Tayassu pecari4 sites
- Coendou prehensilis3 sites
- Conepatus semistriatus3 sites
- Dasyprocta3 sites
- Dasypus (Dasypus) novemcinctus3 sites
- Desmodus rotundus3 sites
- Didelphis marsupialis3 sites
- Eremotherium laurillardi3 sites
- Glyptodon clavipes3 sites
- Lontra longicaudis3 sites
- Macrauchenia patagonica3 sites
- Myrmecophaga tridactyla3 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus3 sites
- Tadarida brasiliensis3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Leopardus pardalis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
10 references- The fossil record of the ocelot Leopardus pardalis (Carnivora, Felidae): a new record from the southern range of its distribution and its paleonvironmental context4
- Novos achados de mamiferos carnivoros do Pleistoceno final-Holoceno em grutas calcarias do Estado da Bahia2
- The ocelot Leopardus pardalis (Linnaeus, 1758) (Carnivora, Felidae) in the late Pleistocene of Uruguay1
- Mammalian fossils from Gruta do Ioiô cave and past of the Chapada Diamantina, northeastern Brazil, using taphonomy, radiocarbon dating and paleoecology1
- Pleistocene mammals from Uruguay: Biostratigraphic, biogeographic and environmental connotations1
- Synonymies and reidentifications of North American fossil mammals1
- A new extinct primate among the Pleistocene megafauna of Bahia, Brazil1
- Barro Colorado Island and Tropical Biology1
- An Overview of Research at Cocha Cashu Biological Station1
- Density, Productivity, and Distribution of Mammals in Two Venezuelan Habitats1
Each of the 14 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Leopardus pardalis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Giles Laurent
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Leopardus pardalis · uf:mammals:4644
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Ocelot”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itLeopardus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)