Ocelot

Ocelots eat meat.

They catch mice and rats most of all. They also catch lizards, snakes, birds and even fish and crabs.

Ocelots are carnivores. About two thirds of an ocelot's diet is small rodents, such as mice and spiny rats. They also catch lizards, iguanas, snakes, birds, rabbits, opossums and armadillos, and sometimes fish and crabs.

An ocelot may stroll along looking for food, or sit still and wait. It follows smell trails to find prey. Ocelots are tidy eaters: they pluck off fur and feathers before they start eating. If a meal is too big, an ocelot covers it and comes back the next night.

ADW summarizes the diet as 65 to 66 percent small rodents, 12 to 18 percent reptiles, 6 to 10 percent medium-sized mammals, 4 to 11 percent birds and 2 to 7 percent crustaceans and fish. Main prey are nocturnal species such as cane mice, spiny rats, agoutis, opossums and armadillos; larger items include lesser anteaters, red brocket deer and squirrel monkeys.

Ocelots track prey along odor trails, either searching on the move or waiting in ambush, and average 0.9 captures per kilometer traveled. Unusually among cats, they pluck fur and feathers before eating. Leftovers are covered and revisited, and prey may be carried up high to eat undisturbed.

Ocelots like to be alone.

They wake up at night to hunt. When they are happy and excited, they can make a chuckling sound.

Ocelots live alone. A mother and her young are the only family group. They are active mostly at night, especially around dawn and dusk, and may come out in the day when it is rainy or cloudy. That makes them very hard to study.

A male's home area overlaps the areas of four or five females. Males mark their areas by clawing logs and leaving scent, so other males know to stay away. Ocelots chuckle when excited, mutter to each other and yowl to attract a mate.

Ocelots are solitary, nocturnal and crepuscular, sleeping by day in hollow trees, dense vegetation or on branches. ADW reports that they are active for more than 12 hours a day and travel 1.8 to 6.7 kilometers, males nearly twice as far as females.

A male's territory overlaps those of four or five females, and males advertise ownership by clawing logs, spraying urine and leaving feces on trails. Communication combines scent with body language, such as the arched back and stiff legs of a threat posture, and calls: chuckles when excited, mutters and courtship yowls. Despite being predators, ocelots are often mobbed by monkeys and birds.

People used to hunt ocelots for their pretty fur.

Now that is against the law in many countries. A big danger today is losing the forests and bushes where they live.

Ocelots were once hunted for their fur. It could take as many as 25 ocelots to make one coat. In 1972 it became illegal to bring ocelots or their skins into the United States and other countries, and few people buy the fur now.

The IUCN lists the ocelot as Least Concern, but its numbers are going down. Clearing of forests and brush, and roads where ocelots can be hit by cars, are big dangers. In Texas, ocelots now live in just two small groups. In 2023 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said there were fewer than 100 of them.

The IUCN lists Leopardus pardalis as Least Concern with a decreasing population trend. The fur trade once took huge numbers; ADW notes that concern over the ocelot helped lead to CITES, the international wildlife trade treaty, and the pelt trade fell sharply in the 1980s. San Diego Zoo dates the ban on importing ocelots and skins into the United States to 1972.

Today's threats are habitat loss and fragmentation, illegal trade in pets and pelts, killing by poultry farmers and road deaths. The Texas ocelot (L. p. albescens) once ranged east to Arkansas and Louisiana and is listed as endangered. In 2023 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported only two small, isolated breeding populations in South Texas, on private ranch land and Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, totaling fewer than 100 ocelots.