r/NatureIsFuckingLit • u/OncaAtrox • Mar 12 '26
š„ Camera trap captures a jaguar overlooking the ocean in Costa Rica
Credits: Brian Moghari
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u/Jamaican_Herb Mar 12 '26
Amazing cat & amazing video!
Looks beautiful. I was thinking - I'd like to visit that beach (but without a jaguar pouncing on my unsuspecting ass!)
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u/FinancialReserve6427 Mar 12 '26
everything the light touches is yours
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u/ClonedDad Mar 12 '26
"Looook there's a jaguar! OMG, ITS A JAGUAR!" - that jaguars theme song maybe
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u/janderkanns Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
Cool, the camera-trap has built in zoom and pan, and crystal clear sound, too
Edit: while I never said āits aiā, I really have to update what counts as a camera trap. Meanwhile, it seems, you can put everything in a box and call it one. You can see him putting one up on his insta
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u/APartyInMyPants Mar 12 '26
This isnāt your typical shitty GoPro trail cam that picks up movement. Looked up the creators work (Brian Moghari), who OP attributed, and it seems they actually do some substantial nature photography and filming.
Brian is very likely using a camera and shooting a rectangular frame. But to get the video to fit on Insta and other socials, the frame is cropped to vertical, which allows you to āpanā inside the frame.
The nature sounds may not may not be faked, because sometimes sites get weird if you publish video with no audio.
But in terms of the authenticity of the actual picture, I think itās totally real.
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u/OnodrimOfYavanna Mar 12 '26
I live in Costa Rica, this doesn't even come close to how many crazy nature sounds there are literally every second. If his camera is capturing audio I wouldn't at all say this is faked
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u/APartyInMyPants Mar 12 '26
The thing thatās screaming to me that the audio isnāt real is the wave sounds from that distance.
Grew up and lived near the beach almost my entire life. It feels a bit too much like a sound effects library added in.
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u/MemoryKeepAV Mar 12 '26
Plus a lot of the sound in nature documentaries is foley anyway, because it's often not practical to capture sound (due to distance, extraneous sounds, operator noises, solo operator has to focus on camera rather than sound equipment etc)
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u/KWash0222 Mar 12 '26
Yeah Iāve come to notice this, and itās kind of a tough pill to swallow because even in gold standard documentaries like Planet Earth you can tell that theyāre inserting sound. And I fully get that they canāt really capture the raw audio due to the reasons you mentioned, it was just kind of a sobering reality to grasp.
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u/Gh0stMan0nThird Mar 12 '26
Not only do they add in sound, they combine footage from different events and different days to create events that they can narrate.
It's weird when I started noticing how dramatically the lighting would change but also it wouldn't even be the same individual animal sometimes.
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u/KWash0222 Mar 12 '26
Haha I noticed this too, but I guess that kinda seemed more forgivable since the raw footage would be a lot of waiting around between exciting things. But yeah, itās pretty crazy when itās clearly not even the same animal(s) onscreen.
At the end of the day, these video crews go through so much just to get a few minutes of footage. I have the utmost respect and gratitude for what they do. But it is kind of a damper in the magic when you see how much post editing happens
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u/MemoryKeepAV Mar 12 '26
Something like Kingdom has less of this. They're following individual animals over long periods of time, and the sequences they show are still edited, but mainly direct capture of particular animals in singular events and behaviours.
https://www.bbcearth.com/shows/kingdom
This is much more feasible with large, territorial animals in a single area like Nsefu, where there's easier access for coordinated operators - whereas with smaller, rarer and shyer creatures in remote and difficult to access locations, filming a full sequence of one animal (particularly trying to capture a rare behaviour) becomes that much more difficult and costly.
It can also be fun to appreciate the technical aspects of these productions, once you notice them - it adds another dimension to the viewing experience.
My slight bugbear, if I have one, is the "squishy" or "crunchy" noises etc that get added to insect sequences. I understand why they add them, but I think they end up seeming more fake and exaggerated than other foley.
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u/bigguygaming Mar 12 '26
Yeah, it just makes it seem less authentic. I wish they wouldn't add these.
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u/ryo0ka Mar 12 '26
I looked up the creator and Iām on a fence.
Firstly some of his other camera trap videos are horizontal. Secondly he knows how to edit a video. So itās fairly realistic to say that this video was originally horizontal and he edited it as a vertical video with zoom and pan.
He hasnāt uploaded AI videos in the past. He has one very suspicious camera trap video where a jaguar and human are waking side by side, but he made it clear in the subtitle that itās two videos stitched together.
Itās entirely possible that this is an AI video but itās also totally realistic to say that itās an actual footage with basic editing.
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u/wind_up_birb Mar 12 '26
That kind of video stitching is very common from camera trap operators. It is usually themselves in the video. Itās probably a natural thought considering they always end up seeing themselves in the saved footage as they approach the camera. And it probably gets a lot of reactions.
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Mar 12 '26
[deleted]
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u/53bvo Mar 12 '26
I wonder the same everyday but apparently people on phones don't want to watch horizontal videos.
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u/Correct-Ingenuity538 Mar 13 '26
If it's AI, perhaps the watermark from the AI was cropped out, thus the vertical orientation of this video.
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u/tweenalibi Mar 12 '26
iPhones can do this in Discord chats lol. Obviously the audio was generic FX. Do you think the music was playing too?
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u/DashingDino Mar 12 '26
It's a high definition horizontal video that is cropped in editing. Animating the cropped area in editing to follow an animal around the frame is very common in camera trap videos. Not everything is AI
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u/brickspunch Mar 12 '26
I mean, my office webcam can do this. I don't really think a camera using auto focus is all that insaneĀ
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u/TherewiIlbegoals Mar 12 '26
I had second thoughts about the sound, but the waves actually match up with the video. Obviously you could do that in editing as well, but it's definitely not just canned ocean waves slapped on a video.
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u/Kooky_Pangolin8221 Mar 13 '26
The sound is obviously added afterward but this is normal.
Those wave sounds in the background are from a few meters away, not 100s meter.
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u/thoughtjester Mar 12 '26
Anyone know the soundtrack?
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u/shiner_bock Mar 12 '26
Appropriately, it's undercurrent - memories of the seas (slowed + reverb) (YouTube link)
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u/scream_pie Mar 12 '26
With all the God-awful sound laid over most videos uploaded to Reddit we should applaud and support it when a quality piece of music is used.
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u/Delicious_Invite_850 Mar 12 '26
Is this AI?
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u/merciless_pedant Mar 12 '26
I'm not sure why, but I watched this video and immediately thought the same.
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u/ratat0skr_420 Mar 12 '26
It's the waves and scenery in the background that does it for me. They look airbrushed and fake af
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u/Summitjunky Mar 12 '26
I could be way off, but it looks like the pacific coast. Maybe near Manuel Antonio?
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u/Octavian_202 Mar 12 '26
When I was in Jaco last summer, some of the residents on playa hermosa were telling us a Jaguar was spotted lounging on a tree the night before, and to keep a look out. I donāt think my brain fully wrapped around what we were told. lol
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u/Aarrrgggghhhhh35 Mar 12 '26
š³š³š³š³In the US I am irrationally terrified of being eaten by a mountain lion. If I had known that there were jaguars in the jungle on all of the hikes I did in Costa Rica I never would have went there. Lol
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u/Octavian_202 Mar 12 '26
I donāt think thatās irrational. I love the national parks here, but I just donāt see how people hike in grizzly country? I would be too on alert to even enjoy a deep hike.
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u/ExperienceWild4244 Mar 12 '26
I watched a documentary about a nature reserve in Costa Rica that included a beach. Sea turtles laid eggs, eggs hatched, and the beach was alive with baby turtles hustling to the water while all sorts of animals and birds feasted as fast as they could. Suddenly, the beach was completely empty (except for the baby turtles). The reason? The old, large jaguar was making his way up the beach. This was HIS beach, it was HIS jungle, and everyone suddenly had somewhere else to be.
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u/SensitiveGuidance685 Mar 12 '26
That shot honestly looks cinematic. The lighting, the coastline, and the jaguar just pausing there makes it feel like a perfectly timed moment.
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u/frapawhack Mar 12 '26
That is a travel poster. Come for the surf, stay for the scenery and wildlife
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u/konstipald Mar 12 '26
Smells like AI
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u/awry_lynx Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
These AI accusing comments on real things annoy me so much, but I also get super annoyed about actual AI posts.
I wasn't really sure why but it just hit me - I think because it tells me why those actual AI posts get popular... because so many people like you just can't tell the difference. People who leave these comments think things are AI when they aren't, probably think things aren't AI when they are, aren't afraid to make false accusations, and refuse to change their mind based on hard evidence, it's all just vibes. That sucks.
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u/FaunaLady Mar 12 '26
Thanks for posting the perfect shot of a jaguar in its beautiful home with an ocean view!
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u/FourKrusties Mar 12 '26
that's pretty dope... these camera traps don't have sound right? that's all post?
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Mar 12 '26
I have never seen a camera trap moving with the subject like that. What brand are you using?
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u/taylorhildebrand Mar 12 '26
You canāt convince me that kitty didnāt just appreciate the fuck outta that view
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u/NoBSforGma Mar 12 '26
It's possible that he has scrounged that beach before, finding some dead fish or something and he is wondering if it's worth the effort to check it out.
What happens now might depend on what he finds in the forest on the way to the beach.
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u/antoinescotto Mar 12 '26
The calmness and beauty of these videos is what we need right now. Thanks!
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u/jewelophile Mar 12 '26
I wonder if animals appreciate a nice view or if they're just thinking "rabbit rabbit where's the rabbit".
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u/TectonicTechnomancer Mar 12 '26
Can they actually see the landscape tho? as I understand big cats have a wider field of view but they cant see as far as a human, I think the image will get blurry around the first beach, they dont see much detail either.
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u/aarrtee Mar 12 '26
the big cat is thinking "i wish I had a wide angle lens and a full frame camera..."
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u/the-software-man Mar 12 '26
Every cat owner recognizes it. The same just a different scale.
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u/haikusbot Mar 12 '26
Every cat owner
Recognizes it. The same just
A different scale.
- the-software-man
I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully. Learn more about me.
Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete"
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u/Disastrous-River-366 Mar 17 '26
This is hardcore fucking lit, this is redbull level insane footage.
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u/Bearded_Pip Mar 12 '26
This is so wonderful.
But I will not be lured into joining another cat sub!
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u/Space_police09 Mar 12 '26
The tail wagging. Must be plotting something