The animal bit and mauled Gregoire Lucazeau on Saturday afternoon, and seriously injured the boy's father as he desperately tried to fight it off.

The jaguar was one of two 100kg females that tunnelled out of their cage at a zoo in Doue-la-Fontaine, near Poitiers, 250km (150 miles) from Paris.

The animals scratched away at earth under the perimeter fence of their enclosure and slipped through the gap.

They headed for a group of visitors and one of them turned on the boy.

The attacking jaguar was shot by police and the other was captured and put to sleep on Sunday morning because it showed signs of aggressive behaviour.

Both animals had been bred at the zoo, which has around 200,000 visitors a year.

The authorities are now investigating how the boy was attacked. The zoo has been closed until further notice.

"The child didn't pass through any security zone," state prosecutor Yves Gambert told France Info radio.

The boy was bitten repeatedly in the head and died of his wounds. His father, an officer from the nearby military training college at Angers, tackled the creature bare-handed. The man was hospitalised with head wounds, but is out of danger.

He was "very courageous, because he tried to free his son from the claws of the animal," nurse Noura Oumaziz told French television LCI.