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Motion-activated wildlife cameras operated by the caught the endangered cat a total of nine times on three different days last month, most recently on Nov. 13.

“That’s very recent,� said researcher Susan Malusa, director of the center. “It’s extremely exciting. We are just shocked.�

This is the fifth different jaguar to be recorded in the U.S. since 2011 and the second new animal spotted since 2023.

The nighttime images released so far show the large cat drinking from a water hole and turning to look over its shoulder, offering a clear view of its distinctive markings.

There’s not enough detail in the pictures to determine the age or the sex of the animal, Malusa said, but the cat “looks absolutely healthy.�

She said she could not release the specific area or mountain range where the jaguar was spotted. That information would have to come from the federal and state wildlife agencies from which the center gets its research permits to conduct scientific monitoring on public land, she said.

spokesman Mark Frieberg also declined to specify the jaguar’s location, but he did say that agency experts have examined the new pictures and confirmed the cat’s spots do not match any other individual on record.

“This is a new one that hasn’t been seen before,� Frieberg said.

The surprising images were first reported Sunday night by a pair of volunteer researchers who were out in the field checking the cameras the center maintains in the area, Malusa said. “One of them has been with this project for 13 years. We have a very committed group.�

After the photos came in, Malusa and others — including some scientific collaborators in Mexico — spent Monday studying the pattern of rosettes on the jaguar’s coat and comparing it to the markings on other big cats previously photographed in Arizona.

“It’s like we were trying to convince ourselves we were wrong,� she said.

The center doesn’t give nicknames to the animals it documents, so for now this new individual is known as Jaguar Number Five — or Cinco if you prefer, Malusa said.

Researchers from the center will soon return to the area where the photos were captured to collect any droppings or fur they can find in hopes of learning more about the animal. Analyzing a jaguar’s scat can tell you what it is eating, offer clues about its overall health and provide hormone readings that can be an indicator of stress, Malusa said.

They also plan to sample water and sediment from the area where the cat was drinking to scan for so-called “environmental DNA,� basically genetic material that may have been shed by the jaguar or other animals drawn to the pool.

Wild Cat Research and Conservation Center operates a network of about 100 wildlife cameras in more than a dozen mountain ranges in Southern Arizona, known as sky islands. With the help of more than 40 volunteer researchers, the center has now logged over 225 detections of the five jaguars recorded in the state over the past 15 years, along with more than 50 detections of Arizona’s tiny population of endangered ocelots.

Over the summer, the center’s cameras captured the last new jaguar recorded in Arizona, an adult male cat first caught on film between May and December of 2023 — first in the Whetstone Mountains by a nonprofit conservation group and then in the Huachuca Mountains by a private wildlife videographer.

Arizona lies at the very northern edge of , which extends as far south as Argentina. The cats that venture into the U.S. come from a breeding population in northern Mexico.

“The sky islands are great habitat for these cats. Our cameras show that we have a pretty sustainable prey population,� Malusa said. “Jaguars wouldn’t be coming here if they weren’t finding what they need here.�

She added that habitat conditions have declined in some areas south of the border as a result of drought, and she wonders if that might not be spurring increased jaguar activity in Arizona.

“I don’t think we have enough data to say for sure,� she said, “but (drought) does have an impact on prey species, so it’s kind of a domino effect.�

Ongoing work by the Trump administration to wall off the remaining portions of the border in Arizona could prevent the movement of jaguars and other animals between the two countries.

“A border wall, a border barrier, a mine, a neighborhood development — these are all impediments that threaten these corridors,� Malusa said.

Conservationists are particularly concerned about construction now underway in the San Rafael Valley, about 80 miles southeast of Tucson, where a 30-foot-tall, bollard-style barrier is being built along a remote, 27-mile stretch of the international boundary that represents one of the largest natural wildlife linkages left between Arizona and Mexico.

“We still have connectivity,� Malusa said, but those passages are shrinking by the day.

“Finding another jaguar on the landscape, even as we have a diminishing corridor, is really exciting,� she said. “I hope they leave some space for them to cross.�