Jaguar

The Americas' great cat carries the strongest bite of any big cat, strong enough to open turtle shells and caiman skulls, which is exactly how it uses it. Jaguars are stockier than leopards, rosettes dotted with central spots, and they treat rivers as roads: few cats swim as readily or as well. Most of the world's jaguars, likely tens of thousands, live in Amazonia; Costa Rica's population is far smaller, threaded through corridors between parks, with Corcovado and the Talamanca ranges as strongholds. Seeing one here is a lottery win, but finding tracks pressed into a beach where a jaguar patrolled for nesting turtles at dawn is a genuine and regular thrill, and somehow almost as good.