A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
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ocelot
The ocelot is a medium-sized spotted cat of the Americas, about twice the size of a house cat, marked with elongated rosettes that run together into chains along the flanks and with two black stripes on each cheek. It hunts at night on the ground, taking rodents, opossums, lizards, and fish, and it ranges from northern Argentina to the brush country of south Texas.
Etymology
The name came into French and then English from Nahuatl, the Aztec language, and the original word meant the jaguar. Somewhere in transmission it was attached to the smaller cat instead. The Latin species name means having little eyes, from the eye-shaped markings.
Notes
The Texas population is one of the northernmost, holding on in dense thorn scrub in a few counties near the Gulf coast, and it is the reason wildlife crossings were built under stretches of highway there. Ocelots are strongly territorial and mark with scrapes and scent, and each animal’s coat pattern is unique enough that trail-camera work identifies individuals from photographs.