What a Skull Can Tell: teacher key

Jaguars, grade 12 edition, written for 12th grade and up. Skulls, fossils and DNA leave open questions about the jaguar: how hard it can bite, how many kinds there were and how much of its old range it holds. See where scientists still disagree.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What did the 2011 study find for a jaguar's maximum canine bite force?
   • 68.15 newtons
   • 6,815 newtons
   • 681.56 newtons (answer)
2. Why is the bite force figure an estimate and not a measurement?
   • It was worked out from skull shape with a model, not measured on a living jaguar (answer)
   • It was measured at a zoo
   • It was guessed by hunters
3. What do some authors suggest about the earliest jaguar fossils in the Americas?
   • They are from a cat that lived long ago and is now extinct (answer)
   • They are from a black panther
   • They are from a leopard
4. What does subpopulations mean in this book?
   • Smaller groups within a species (answer)
   • Baby jaguars
   • Rivers
5. What do camera-trap studies suggest about unprotected farmland?
   • Jaguars can live there if natural areas and riparian habitat stay and hunting is limited (answer)
   • Jaguars can never live there
   • Jaguars live only on farmland

Words

• newtons: units of force
• subspecies: smaller kinds
• subpopulations: smaller groups
• riparian: streamside
• IUCN: nature protection group
• retina: back of eye