Wild Jaguar Spotted on Camera in Arizona

WATCH: Camera-trap footage captured in the mountains outside Tucson, Arizona, reveals a jaguar that scientists have been tracking for three years. Video courtesy Conservation CATalyst and the Center for Biological Diversity

El Jefe, the only wild jaguar known in the United States, has made his film debut.

In unprecedented video released by the nonprofits Conservation CATalyst and the Center for Biological Diversity, the big cat is seen prowling the Santa Rita Mountains near Tucson, Arizona.

He's no stranger to the media limelight, though: Trail cameras have photographed the male more than a hundred times over the past three years, and schoolchildren named him El Jefe—which means "the boss" in Spanish—during a nationwide contest in 2015. (See "'Indomitable' Jaguars May Have Lessons in Survival for Us.")

To catch the solitary cat on camera, conservationists used dogs to sniff out jaguar scat, and then installed cameras in these strategic spots.

A U.S. jaguar

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