Most big cats kill prey by strangulation. From the house cat to the tiger and lion, they all go for the neck/throat in most cases, biting so hard and holding so tight that the victim either chokes or has a stroke. In some cases, the bite is deep enough to pierce the windpipe, the jugular vein, or even to snap the neck vertebrae. It often takes a few minutes for a big cat to strangle a large prey to death. But the jaguar is a completely different story. This formidable cat, found in Mexico and Central and South America, has been known to strangle some prey once in a while, but it usually goes for a faster, deadlier method; it simply bites through the skull and pierces the brain, causing instant death. It has particularly long and thick fangs, and incredibly powerful jaws to do this (actually, its bite is much stronger than a lion’s or a tiger’s, relative to the cat’s size). The skull bite allows the jaguar to kill armored prey such as caimans, as well as the, now extinct, glyptodonts (giant relatives to armadillos), and they have also been known to use this killing method successfully against feral bulls weighing almost half a ton. You could ask, if the jaguar kills its prey so quickly and efficiently, why is it in the list? Shouldn’t the other cats be worse, since it takes minutes for them to strangle prey? Maybe, but it seems that for some not so big, or not so armored prey, the jaguar doesn’t bite through the top of the skull, but rather sinks its fangs into the victims ears! Can you imagine the fangs of a giant cat stabbing through your ears and going into your brain? That’s the stuff of nightmares.