Watch fearsome predator stop to play with her cubs in trail camera video from Argentina
Even as one of the fiercest felines in the world, every mom needs a break every once in a while.
For one furry mother, she took a break from protecting her babies to play with them — and it’s adorable.
A wildlife camera in Argentina captured the collared Argentinian jaguar as she walks into frame and lays in the grass.
The video, shared by the Center for Biological Diversity on Facebook, then shows her three cubs chasing after and jumping onto their mom.
The cubs roll and tumble on the lump of their mother in the grass, then jump and play with one another, the video shows.
The patient mother nibbles and swats back before standing up and walking toward the camera and then out of frame.
The mother is part of a reintroduction program, the center said, which aims to grow the population and range of Argentinian jaguars.
“(The team has) successfully reintroduced jaguars into formerly occupied habitat at the species’ southern range in Argentina’s Iberá,” the center said in the Facebook post. “The last jaguar in the area was killed in 1953. But thanks to ReWilding Argentina, now 25 jaguars thrive there.”
The project hopes to eventually expand jaguars back to their native range, including up into the continental U.S. in Arizona and New Mexico, according to the post.
Jaguars are the largest big cats in South America and the third largest in the world, according to National Geographic.
They are good swimmers and climbers, National Geographic says, and they use this to their advantage when hunting fish, turtles, caimans, deer, capybaras, tapirs and other animals.
Jaguars are listed as “near threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Red List, and their population is still in decline.
Iberá is in northeastern Argentina, near the border with Paraguay.
