You Can't Outrun a Cheetah

If you ever get to see a cheetah run, don't blink, you'll miss it. Hi, I'm Danielle and you're watching Animalogic. Cheetahs are synonymous with speed. While they aren't the fastest animals on the planet, the peregrine falcon, for example, reaches a mind-numbing 400 km per hour when diving, they do hold the title for fastest animal on land. They've been measured hitting top speeds of 120 km per hour, but that was an extreme case. Typically, they won't exceed 65 km per hour. Cheetahs are sprinters, not long-distance runners. While they can reach high speeds, it's how they accelerate to those speeds that's most interesting. A cheetah can accelerate to 0-100 km per hour in 3 seconds flat, or just 3 strides. Some studies even put them at 2.9 seconds flat. Meaning that a cheetah 40 meters away could have started running and caught me in the first third of that sentence. For comparison, the first Porsche able to tie a cheetah in acceleration wasn't produced until 2011. Cheetahs accomplished this feat through a series of remarkable adaptations. First of all, they are super lightweight, despite not being particularly small. They stand around a meter tall at the shoulder, which is just 20% shorter than a lion. Yet despite this, they weigh a quarter of the weight of a lion. The average adult male lion weighs 250 kilos, while a large adult male cheetah weighs just 70 kilos, but most of them don't grow heavier than 55 kilos. This slender frame helps acceleration, and their flat head minimizes air resistance. They have very distinct hips that can pivot in place, allowing for cheetahs to keep up with the sharp turns their prey uses to try and throw them off. Their shoulder blades aren't attached to their collarbone, which allows for their legs to stretch much further apart and pull much closer together to increase the length of their stride. Their spine acts somewhat like a spring, compressing and releasing energy with each stride, giving them even more of a boost. Their claws are only semi-retractable. This gives them increased grip, kind of like cleats. Paired with their pads, which are much harder than other cats, allowing for better shock absorption. Their tail acts like a rudder during chases, allowing them to make super sharp turns. Cheetahs have very long nasal passages, which allow for large amounts of air to enter their lungs and oxygenate their blood, and when on a chase, their respiratory rate increases to between 60 and 150 breaths per minute. In a single stride, a cheetah will launch forward over 7 meters, increasing their speed with each step. Their strides are so massive that it looks more like they're launching themselves into the air rather than running. In fact, they spend more time in the air than they do on the ground, as with each stride, all of their legs leave the ground not once, but twice. You may have heard that cheetahs will overheat while sprinting, and as a result, have to give up on the chase. This is a myth. This little bit of misinformation came from a study in the 1970s, in which two Harvard scientists had a couple captive-raised cheetahs run on treadmills in a lab with thermometers stuck up their rear ends. This clearly highly scientific study found that the cheetahs would overheat too much while running and would need to stop. Their conclusions were based on bad data. Not only were they not testing wild cheetahs, they were running on a treadmill indoors instead of outdoors in the plains, and they had them do long-distance runs instead of sprints. Despite this, the information spread, and to this day, people will mention that cheetahs will overheat when they run, making them too specialized, and that's why they'll eventually go extinct. It's not. Cheetahs are purpose-built for one thing, running. And they do it very, very well. The reason they're listed as vulnerable isn't due to overheating. It's due to us. Cheetahs live in very low densities, and need very long stretches of land to sustain themselves. As we develop more and more into cheetah territory, we segment their populations and drive prey out. Clashes with farmers is one cause of their population decreasing, but a bigger one is poaching for their fur, and the recent resurgence of the illegal live animal trade, in which cheetahs are especially popular and primarily end up in the Gulf states. Cheetahs used to be found across Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and India, but today they can only be found in southern and eastern Africa, and there remains a small, critically endangered population in Iran. Their current range is an estimated 89% smaller than their historic range, and it's estimated that their range will decrease another 10% over the next 15 years. Cheetahs remain the only extant member of their family, which used to contain several species. Most notable were the giant cheetahs, which lived in Europe and China and were twice as large as a cheetah. And then there's the king cheetah. These guys were originally thought to be a separate species, but actually are simply a mutation. They have thicker fur and bigger spots. Unlike many other cats, cheetahs are diurnal, which means that they're active during the day. This is likely precisely because many other big cats, including their number one predators, the lions, are primarily nocturnal, thus lessening the chances for competition. When hunting, due to their small stature, cheetahs tend to go after smaller prey, like hares and birds. Though sometimes they will go after larger prey like gazelle, impala, ostriches, and young wildebeest, but in order to successfully take on the bigger prey, they need to team up. Most cheetahs live in groups, the exceptions being young males who haven't joined a group yet, or pregnant females. Males tend to form groups of males called coalitions. They are usually made up of brothers, but other males may join as well to help defend their territory together. Groups are not only helpful for attacking larger prey, but also for attracting mates. Male cheetah coalitions have a better chance of encountering females than solo cheetahs. The interesting thing about the males is that they're competitive with territory and females, but at the same time, they are social. Once the group or the solo male has secured territory, Their territories are huge! While they don't overheat on the hunt and have to give up on kills, they do have to eat quickly. Namely, lions, leopards, and hyenas. That said, cheetahs don't go down without a fight, and only give up around 10% of their kills to larger predators. Cheetah cubs are born very underdeveloped, with their eyes closed for about a week. It takes about another week for them to learn to walk, and around 14 weeks to reach adolescence. Unfortunately, only about 20% of them will make it that far, and the rest are primarily preyed upon by lions and spotted hyenas. Cheetah cubs are absolutely adorable, and look rather different from the adults, mostly because of their mohawks. This is a layer of light-coloured fur called a mantle. We're not entirely sure why they have it, but one theory is that cheetah cubs are mimicking honey badgers to benefit from their reputation of being fearsome. What animal should I check out next? Please let me know in the comments, and be sure to subscribe for new episodes of Animalogic every other week. Thanks for watching!