Joe Rogan Experience #2554 - Carlo Rovelli · Aired Sep 15, 2026
Claim summary · not a verbatim quotation
Mountain lions are roughly half the size of jaguars.
The finding
What the evidence shows
Jaguars are stockier and can grow heavier, but they are not twice the size. The San Diego Zoo's profiles put jaguars at 70 to 249 pounds and male mountain lions at 116 to 158 pounds, so the two ranges overlap and a typical jaguar is nowhere near double a typical male cougar. Only the largest jaguars, such as those in South America's Pantanal, open up that kind of gap.
Read the supporting source · animals.sandiegozoo.org ↗Quick answer & review status
Quick answer
Is it true that Mountain lions are roughly half the size of jaguars?
Partly. The claim stretches what the evidence shows. Jaguars are stockier and can grow heavier, but they are not twice the size. The San Diego Zoo's profiles put jaguars at 70 to 249 pounds and male mountain lions at 116 to 158 pounds, so the two ranges overlap and a typical jaguar is nowhere near double a typical male cougar. It was said on Joe Rogan Experience #2554 - Carlo Rovelli, aired Sep 15, 2026, at 2:19:25. We haven't independently confirmed who said it. The supporting source is animals.sandiegozoo.org, linked below.
The context belongs here.
No separately verified on-air correction is recorded for this check. That is not a claim that nobody corrected it.
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- Editorial context review
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- One selected claim from the episode
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