Pantanal – The Big 5

Just like Africa, the Pantanal has it’s own Big 5 in terms of animals to spot. I’m very pleased to report that, by the end of our stay, we’d seen all 5 which was very exciting.

The easiest to find were the cute Capybaras as they lived just outside the lodge gates by the ‘pond’. They’re very docile and could be found each morning with birds on their backs or occasionally sitting in the muddy water.

The Marsh Deer were actually quite hard to find. We saw lots of Pampas deer but the Marsh deer are bigger and have huge ears. To be honest, we didn’t get very excited about spotting deer…I mean Dave and Jayne get deer on their property in Scotland all the time!

The next easiest to find, bizarrely, we’re Jaguars!!! Now this is what we’d really come here to see and we definitely were not disappointed. In total we spotted 9 different Jaguars whilst we were there. My favourite sightings were:

1) The first night. We were following 1 Jaguar when it started to walk through to another area where there were 2 other male Jaguars playing together. It was dark and incredibly exciting as the guides all said how rare this was and they thought it might all kick off. It didn’t but instead Jafar and Scar played nicely whilst Mango kept a distance.

2) On our last night we came across Surya, a female Jaguar, lying sleeping in the grass in plain sight. We watched her for a while and then went to see her cub, Juba, who was hiding in a thicket nearby. Juba is actually 8 months old and she was very well hidden. We were about to move on when all of a sudden Surya came walking along. She looked as if she was going to walk past when Juba appeared out of the thicket. There was a flurry of movement as Surya flew at the cub and snarled angrily bearing her teeth as if to say ‘Don’t you dare get out of that bush’. We watched from within 15 metres of this completely open mouthed. But the action didn’t stop there. We proceeded to follow Surya across the track and to her kill from yesterday (a cow). Juba tried to follow but again got snarled at and held back. We watched this scene unfold for about an hour as it got dark. Mum tucked into the carcass as Juba watched patiently but every now and then edged towards the feast. Finally, when Mum had just about had enough, Juba was allowed to join in. It was an amazing thing to watch.

3) On our last morning, when it was just Jane and me in the van with our guides as everyone had left, we had one more treat. As we were driving back for breakfast all of a sudden by the track and right beside us, a HUGE Jaguar bounded out of one of the drainage pipes under the road where it had been sheltering. We’d been staring at a bird and just moved on and so I think we gave the waking Jaguar a fright. The power of this beast was awesome and we’d just met out 9th Jaguar, a big male called Caira. What a final treat!

The fourth of the Big 5 is the Giant Anteater. We had a couple of sightings of these strange looking beasts with their long nose for eating 35000 termites and other insects a day! They’re mostly nocturnal when the weather is hot and use their bushy tails to keep them warm when sleeping.

Finally, we had one more of the Big 5 to find, the Tapir. Another unusual creature with a nose like a mini trunk! They’re nocturnal too and we’d been told at the very beginning by Carol, that they were the most difficult to find. So, on our last night this was the mission for our truck, find the Tapir! We’d had no luck all afternoon but after the lamp lit dinner, Carol suggested we go and take a final look up Mango Alley. We could not believe our luck when there it was – our lovely, weird Tapir. He was only there for a fleeting couple of minutes before he mooched back into the field and was hidden in the long grass.

Fantastic…the Big 5……tick!