Cheetah

File:Cheetah at Working with Wildlife.jpg

Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)

The cheetah is the common name for the large predatory mammal classified as Acinonyx jubatus in the Felidae family.

Once widespread in Africa and Asia, the cheetah is now limited to some areas of East and Southern Africa, Iran, and northwestern Afghanistan. According to surveys conducted in the 1990s, the African population totals approximately 12,000 specimens, with the largest group found in Ethiopia.

Physical characteristics

Comparable in size to the leopard (about 50 kg in weight), the cheetah has a more slender body, longer and thinner legs than any other feline, and a smaller head. Excluding the tail, it measures from 1.1 to 1.5 m in length. It has a yellowish coat with a lighter belly and circular black spots; even the cubs have a spotted coat, but, until four months of age, it is long, silky, and gray on the back and head.

The cheetah has short claws without sheaths, which makes them non-retractable. This characteristic, like others that distinguish the cheetah from most other felines, gives it an advantage in running: the claws remain exposed and therefore favor greater stability on the ground. Other adaptations of this formidable predator for fast running include a particularly efficient respiratory system, a highly developed heart, paw pads shaped to facilitate sudden braking, and a very flexible spine, which allows the animal to lengthen by about 11% while running. Furthermore, it has proportionally smaller canine teeth than other felines; The adaptive advantage of this characteristic perhaps lies in the fact that the nasal cavities can consequently be wider, thus improving the efficiency of breathing.

All these peculiarities contribute to making the cheetah an excellent sprinter, unbeatable in speed and power in the first 200-300 meters of a run; after this limit, however, the endurance of its prey – mainly gazelles and antelopes – prevails in a hunt.

Behavior and hunting technique

The female cheetah leads a solitary life for most of the time, except during the period when she is raising her cubs. Adult males roam alone or in small groups of two or three individuals, often related, joining the females only during the mating season.

The cheetah's hunting technique consists of spotting the prey and catching it while running; it therefore differs from that of the leopard – a related feline – which uses its sense of smell to locate prey and carries out the actual capture through stalking and ambush. Over short distances, the cheetah is absolutely the fastest land animal, reaching speeds of approximately 100 km/h. It hunts during the day and feeds mainly on antelopes and gazelles, which it eats entirely, except for the bones, skin, and intestines; its main competitors are lions and hyenas, which often threaten its prey; however, to avoid direct competition, the cheetah has developed predominantly diurnal habits, while lions and hyenas are more active after dusk.

Biology and reproduction

The average lifespan of a cheetah is 12-14 years; the female reaches reproductive maturity around 24-36 months, the male around 30-36 months. Reproduction can occur throughout the year; gestation lasts 90-98 days, and the interval between births is typically 15-19 months.

An endangered species

Today, the cheetah is endangered in much of its range. Besides the fact that it possesses a valuable coat, highly sought after by hunters, and that it is targeted by shepherds who fear for their flocks, one of the causes that probably underlies its sharp decline in numbers is the frequency with which these animals mate with relatives: this practice leads to reduced genetic variability within populations and therefore to poor adaptability of the species, which offers the mechanisms of natural selection a limited number of options.

CITES protects the cheetah by classifying it in Appendix I (the list of endangered species previously subject to international trade, for which trade is now permitted only in exceptional cases).

Scientific classification: The cheetah is classified as "Acinonyx jubatus" in the family Felidae, order Carnivora, class Mammalia, subphylum Vertebrata, phylum Chordata.