ocelotl (Mdz20r)
This iconographic example of a warrior outfit is meant to provide a comparison here to glyphic representations of jaguar skins, which here are clearly yellow with black spots.
Stephanie Wood
Many people confuse the translation of ocelotl with ocelot. But the term ocelotl, in Nahuatl, more typically referred to the jaguar. The jaguar is the Felis onca, and the ocelot is the Felis pardalis.
Stephanie Wood
c. 1541, but by 1553 at the latest
![](https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/ocelotl20rICON.png?itok=SKQChCRg)
ocelo(tl), jaguar, https://nahuatl.wired-humanities.org/content/ocelotl
Codex Mendoza, folio 20 recto, https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/2fea788e-2aa2-4f08-b6d9-648c00..., image 50 of 188.
The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, hold the original manuscript, the MS. Arch. Selden. A. 1. This image is published here under the UK Creative Commons, “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License” (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).
![](https://aztecglyphs.wired-humanities.org/sites/default/files/ocelotl20rICONgloss.png)