50 Fun Facts About Cheetah

What is the highest reliably reported running speed for a cheetah?

The popular figure of 114 km/h was discredited because of a faulty measurement method.

How quickly can a cheetah accelerate from 0 to 97 km/h (60 mph)?

Polo horses, by comparison, take 3.6 seconds just to reach 36 km/h.

What is the cheetah's scientific name?

It is the only living member of its genus; jubatus is Latin for 'crested' or 'having a mane'.

The genus name Acinonyx roughly translates as what?

It refers to the cheetah's limited ability to retract its claws.

The word 'cheetah' comes via Hindi and Urdu from a Sanskrit word meaning what?

In the past it was often called the 'hunting leopard' because it could be tamed for coursing.

Which two cats are the cheetah's closest living relatives?

Together they form the Puma lineage, which split from other cats about 6.7 million years ago.

What facial feature is unique to the cheetah among cats?

They may cut the sun's glare or sharpen facial expressions; the leopard has rosettes instead of spots and no streaks.

Roughly how many black spots cover a cheetah's body?

Each is 3 to 5 cm across, and each cheetah's pattern is unique enough to identify individuals.

How do the cheetah's claws differ from those of most other cats?

The dewclaw is the exception: large, curved and sharp, it hooks prey mid-chase.

What role does the cheetah's tail play at full speed?

At only 2% of body mass it is too light to counterbalance; instead the thick fur adds 40% to its area and drag.

How long is a single stride of a galloping cheetah?

Spinal flexion adds up to 76 cm per stride, and all four feet are off the ground for more than half the sprint.

Cheetah thigh muscles are how much bigger than predicted for a four-legged mammal of its size?

A lion's or tiger's are about what you would expect; the cheetah is built for sprinting alone.

How many teeth does a cheetah have?

Its small canines suffocate prey with a throat bite; blade-like carnassials let it bolt meat before bigger predators arrive.

How many cheetah subspecies did the IUCN Cat Specialist Group recognise in 2017?

They are native to Africa and central Iran; an African subspecies was introduced to India in 2022.

What was the estimated global cheetah population in 2021?

The IUCN lists the species as Vulnerable; the largest population, nearly 4,000, is spread across southern Africa.

Before India's 2022 reintroduction, which country alone had wild cheetahs outside Africa?

The Asiatic population had fallen to about 43 animals by 2016, spread across the central plateau.

Who shot the last three wild cheetahs in India, in 1947?

The last confirmed Indian sighting was a cheetah that drowned in a well near Hyderabad in 1957.

Cheetahs were reintroduced to India in September 2022 from Namibia into which reserve?

Eight animals were released; they produced 17 cubs, but by September 2024 eight adults and four cubs had died.

Iran declared which date its National Cheetah Day in 2006?

Iran had around 400 cheetahs before World War II; prey declines after 1979 shrank the range drastically.

What is a group of male cheetahs that live and defend a territory together called?

They are usually brothers, though in the Serengeti about 30% of coalition members are unrelated.

Which sex of cheetah roams over larger home ranges?

Females wander after prey; males settle smaller territories where prey and females are plentiful.

What is the intense, bird-like call a cheetah makes when excited or calling cubs?

Cheetahs cannot roar; the chirp is likened to a lion's soft roar and the churr to its loud one.

Cheetahs mostly hunt prey weighing under what?

Impala, springbok and Thomson's gazelles are favourites; Kruger has rare records of giraffe and buffalo calves.

How does a cheetah usually bring down its quarry at full speed?

The stumble at speed can break the prey's limbs; the kill is then a throat bite held for up to five minutes.

How long does an average cheetah chase last?

A 2013 study found chases averaged 173 metres, with the longest at 559 metres.

What is the cheetah's success rate hunting Thomson's gazelles in the Serengeti?

That beats the African wild dog at 57%, the spotted hyena at 33% and the lion at 26%.

Roughly what share of its kills does a cheetah lose to bigger predators?

Its cheap, short sprints mean it can cope with a 25% loss and still recoup the energy in four hours of hunting a day.

How much meat does a cheetah eat on a typical day?

One Etosha cheetah managed 10 kg in two hours; they eat fast, starting with the soft hindquarters.

How long is a cheetah's gestation?

Litters of three or four cubs are typical, though up to eight have been born.

Cheetah cubs' long bluish-grey mantle may make them resemble which animal, deterring predators?

The mohawk-like mantle is shed as the cub grows.

What is the main cause of death for cheetah cubs?

Predators accounted for 58% of cub deaths in the Serengeti and 89% in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

At about what age do cheetah cubs become independent?

Females often stay near their mothers for life while males move away.

How long do wild female cheetahs typically live?

Males generally manage about ten; early captive cheetahs averaged only three or four.

What is remarkable about skin grafts between unrelated cheetahs?

Two ancient population bottlenecks left cheetahs with just 0.1 to 4% of the genetic variation of an average species.

What is a 'king cheetah'?

The 2012 discovery traced it to the Taqpep gene, the same one behind mackerel versus blotchy tabby cats.

Which taxonomist described the king cheetah as a separate species, Acinonyx rex, in 1927?

Local people in Zimbabwe had thought the animal was a cross between a leopard and a hyena.

Where did the earliest known depictions of the cheetah, dated 32,000 to 26,000 BC, come from?

Ancient Egyptians later believed cheetahs carried away the spirits of dead pharaohs.

Which Mughal emperor is said to have kept as many as 1,000 imperial cheetahs?

His son Jahangir recorded that only one of them ever gave birth; the cats hunted blackbuck.

Which ancient Egyptian deity of the First Dynasty was sometimes depicted as a cheetah?

During the New Kingdom cheetahs were royal pets with ornate collars and leashes.

Where was the first cheetah kept in a zoo, in 1829?

Early captive cheetahs lived only three or four years on average.

Which zoo saw a record litter of eight cheetah cubs in November 2017?

It set the record for the most births recorded by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

Which Namibian organisation runs the world's only genetics lab devoted to the species?

Its lab is in Otjiwarongo; its 'Bushblok' scheme restores habitat by thinning bush.

Which painter's Bacchus and Ariadne shows the god's chariot drawn by two cheetahs?

The cats in the 16th-century painting were long taken for leopards.

A 1764 painting by Stubbs commemorated the gift of a cheetah to which British king?

The Governor of Madras, Sir George Pigot, sent it; the painting shows two Indian attendants and a stag.

How many documented lethal attacks by wild cheetahs on humans are there?

Fatal maulings by captive cheetahs have occurred, including a woman who sneaked into a Belgian zoo cage in 2007.

Cheetahs are mainly active at what time of day?

Being diurnal helps them avoid the mainly nocturnal lion, though Sahara cheetahs hunt after dark to beat 43 C heat.

Because they could be tamed and used for coursing, cheetahs were once commonly called what?

Their genus name reflects a different trait: Acinonyx likely combines Greek words for 'motionless' and 'claw', for the blunt, barely retractile claws.

How is the cheetah classified on the IUCN Red List?

Habitat loss, conflict with humans, poaching and disease susceptibility all weigh on a species that survives on only about nine per cent of its former African range.

Which palaeontologist proposed Miracinonyx in 1979 for North America's extinct cheetah-like cats?

Those cats had been shuffled between Felis, Puma and Acinonyx; the modern cheetah itself appeared in Africa around 1.9 million years ago.

How long ago did the Puma lineage, which includes the cheetah, split from the other cat lineages?

The lineage is one of eight among living felids; its sister group is a clade of smaller Old World cats including the genus Felis.