My Year of Darwin 3/29/2014: Darwin doesn't do big cats

These thickets afford a retreat for capybaras and jaguars. The fear of the latter animal quite destroyed all pleasure in scrambling through the woods. This evening I had not proceeded a hundred yards, before, finding indubitable signs of the recent presence of the tiger, I was obliged to come back. On every island there were tracks; and as on the former excurion "el rastro de los Indios" had been the subject of conversation, so in this was "el rastro del tigre." -Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle

He's given up crossing land and was hitching a ride to meet up with the Beagle and his taxi moored up on an island and Darwin got out to explore. There he encounters evidence of jaguars and this worries him. I found this interesting because I know of no cases of jaguars attacking humans. I have, however, been followed multiple times. I never saw the jaguar but their prints were on top of mine. I also talked to people that have come across jaguars. Another Amazonian ornithologist had one watch him at night look for frogs. I was in camp when a butterfly researcher had one lay down in front of her. She walked slowly back and went another way.  Jaguars are cool and they could easily kill a human if they wanted to - but they don't. 

This is one of my favorite videos: