The Art of Lawrence Supino

My Wild Cat paintings are inspired by my love of these magnificent animals. "Jag" is my painting of a Black Jaguar (Panthera onca). The original "Jag" was sold to a private collector in Europe through a gallery in Switzerland. Jaguars are the third largest cat in the world and one of the rarest. Black Jaguars are melanistic (the result of a dominant gene mutation). They are often called Black Panthers, but that is incorrect and may be due to the word "Panthera" being part of their scientific name, like many of the big cats.

Unlike many other big cats, the jaguar has no rivals, except for man of course, and have very powerful jaws/bite. The name Jaguar comes from a South American Indian word "yaguara", which means "a beast that kills its prey with one bound". Black Jaguars are most often found in forest habitats native to South/Latin America. They can be distinguished from the Black Leopard by their larger, fewer in number, spotted rosette markings and tend to be thicker and stockier than leopards, with larger rounder heads and shorter thicker limbs. They usually have a height of about 2 1/2 feet (76cm), lenght: 5-8 feet (1.7-2.4m) from nose to tip of tail and can weigh: 100-250 lbs (45-113 kg). Jags can live over 20 years in captivity, and 11 to 12 years in the wild. Black Jaguars are on the brink of extinction!