Arizona Game and Fish officials say a rare jaguar seen in Arizona last year has been killed in Mexico.
They say the Northern Jaguar Project asked the department for help in confirming the identity of the animal.
Biologists compared photos of a jaguar that visited the Huachuca Mountains in 2016 and 2017 to the photo of the pelt and determined it was the same animal.
The photo was independently analyzed by six Game and Fish biologists to see if the pelt's spot patterns match photographs of a jaguar last seen in Arizona in May 2017.
Authorities say no female jaguar has been seen in the U.S. since the 1960s.
They say Arizona may now be too populous to provide good jaguar habitat.
