Yes this is a genuine verified jaguar print discovered on the beach in the previous photo, on the Caribbean coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. In fact there was a whole trail of jaguar tracks leading out of the forest and onto and along the beach. So what's the story. Well myself, Antonio a Mexican guide, and a young American guy named Sheldon had come to this secluded beach to swim out to the off shore coral reef and do some snorkelling. We were met there by two local Mayans, the only other people anywhere in sight. They seemed quite animated, spoke to Antonio and then led us to where the tracks began. For me who can only call myself an amateur wildlife enthusiast with minimal experience of tropical natural or semi-natural environments, this was something very special - the closest I'd ever come to seeing if not the real thing then at least actual fresh evidence of the recent presence of a large wild cat species. And in fact for the locality this was not what you might call a normal occurence anyway. Although the beach itself was undeveloped and isolated and we had approached along a narrow road barely more than a track through scrub and forest, we were not that far from the main coastal highway. Just a few miles to the North was a resort and ditto to the South. Jaguars need a very large expanse of wild jungle to forage and breed in, and although protected throughout their range they are listed as an endangered species whose numbers declined sharply during the previous century. The forested area this particular cat had passed through was a mere fragment, a narrow rectangle of habitat bordered on one side by a busy highway, on the other the ocean, and populated areas at each end. The other side of the highway from which it undoubtedly had come would have provided access to much larger tracts of wild jungle, much of which lies within the Yucatan National Park, one of the largest wildlife sanctuaries in Northern and Central America,. To leave the security of the deeper jungle for the spot we were now at seems very uncharacteristic. My guess is the animal was either an adult getting on in years who was finding the competition in its normal territory too much, or more likely was an inexperienced juvenile who had got a bit lost and accidentally wandered across the highway during the night.