Jaguar vs. Giant Otters

I didn't really expect to see this type of interaction in Brazil, though I secretly hoped for it after seeing random YouTube videos over the years. 

On our final foray into the waterways of the Pantanal, we found a few more jaguars after having very good luck with them in the preceding days.  Our final cat was perched on the river bank, just hanging out.  I thought it was just relaxing in the shade until a family of giant river otters emerged from the nearby thicket below.  It turns out they had some babies hidden away, and the jaguar was likely investigating to see if it could grab a quick meal.

Earlier in the trip we'd seen a jaguar leap ten feet off a bank into the water in an attempt to catch a caiman, so going after aquatic prey is nothing out of the ordinary for these cats.  However, messing with a family of giant otters--five to six feet in length on average--is another matter.

In this case, the otters would come out every few minutes.  They'd bark and howl at the jaguar, then swim back to their den.  The ritual repeated itself for a good forty-five minutes before the otters swam off (leaving one adult with the pups in the den) to hunt.  We never got to see the pups, but it sure was a treat witnessing this type of standoff between equally-matched combatants.

Canon 1DIV
100-400mm
ISO 800
1/800th
f/4.5

Max