Research overview: ocelot range and habitat use across the Neotropics

The ocelot holds one of the broadest ranges of any Neotropical cat, reaching from the thornscrub of southern Texas through Mexico and Central America into the Amazon basin and northern Argentina. This overview synthesizes camera-trap and radio-telemetry work showing that ocelots strongly favor dense vegetative cover such as lowland rainforest, gallery forest, and mangrove while avoiding open ground. Studies repeatedly find that canopy closure and understory density predict occupancy better than prey abundance alone, because cover reduces exposure and concentrates the small mammals ocelots hunt. The isolated Texas population, numbering under a hundred animals, marks the species ecological edge. Mapping these habitat associations matters for corridor design and brush restoration aimed at keeping fragmented populations connected.