{"id":72974,"date":"2017-10-26T09:00:24","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T07:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/safariavventura.com\/the-cheetah-we-discover-the-worlds-fastest-and-most-elegant-feline\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T18:46:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T16:46:39","slug":"the-cheetah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/safariavventura.com\/en\/the-cheetah\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cheetah: we discover the world’s fastest and most elegant feline"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have already talked about many of Africa’s characteristic animals that can be encountered on a Tanzania tour, such as Masai lions<\/a> and cudus<\/a>, peculiar antelopes, but we are missing one of the most beautiful animals of the Savannah: the Cheetah, the world’s fastest and most elegant feline.<\/p>\n

The Cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus<\/b><\/i>, is the world’s fastest carnivore, and belongs to the felid family, the same as lions, leopards, tigers and jaguars. Despite this, it has many characteristics different from the feline species, more similar to those of canids, such as long hoes and only partly retractable claws. <\/p>\n

If you want to find out in detail about this beautiful animal, all you have to do is continue reading.<\/p>\n

Etymology of the name<\/h2>\n

The etymology of the names, the Greek and Italian, is rather complex. The Greek term Acinonyx<\/strong> comes from the union of two Greek terms meaning claw<\/em> and immobile<\/em>, precisely to indicate its particular characteristic of having non-retractile claws, unlike all felines. Jubatus, on the other hand, is a Latin term meaning “mane bearer<\/em>,” referring to the presence of thicker hair around the neck. <\/p>\n

The name Ghepardo became part of the Italian language only fairly recently, namely in 1874, and is said to derive from the French term gu\u00e9pard <\/i>, which may in turn derive from the Italian gattopardo, a word used to refer to spotted felines. <\/i> <\/p>\n

Conservation status<\/h2>\n

Today this beautiful feline is endangered and a vulnerable species, threatened especially by population pressure. It is estimated, for example, that in the 1960s the number of cheetahs in Serengeti National Park<\/a> was around 250. Today, however, according to the most recent data, only 40-50 remain. <\/p>\n

More than any other feline, the cheetah needs a vast grassy savannah around it as its living space. Only in such a habitat, thanks to its highly specialized hunting technique <\/strong>, which makes it the fastest mammal on earth,<\/strong> can it find and capture its prey. To construct an ideal hunting ground for the cheetah<\/strong>, the savannah must have a simple requirement: grass that is not too low to cover its movements as it approaches its prey, but also not so high that it hinders the shot that enables it to capture it. <\/p>\n

Size of the cheetah<\/h2>\n

The size of cheetahs reaches about 120-150 cm in length, to which 70-80 cm of tail must then be added. Height at withers, on the other hand, is 70-90 cm. However, this feline is particularly slender and lean, which is essential to allow it its enormous acceleration, and in fact rarely exceeds 60 kg. <\/p>\n

Maximum speed of cheetahs<\/h2>\n

The cheetah is known to be the world’s<\/strong> fastest and most accelerating mammal<\/strong>, but regarding the maximum speed it can reach, tests have been done that have redefined it. Until the 2000s, in fact, measurements taken around the 5o’s, according to which the animal’s maximum speed was around 110-120 km\/h, had been taken as true and correct. <\/p>\n

However, in 2013, further verifications and measurements were carried out using much more sophisticated technologies and instruments, thanks to which it was possible to verify that the maximum speed of cheetahs is 93 km\/h.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lion, leopard and cheetah: a challenge on the hunting ground<\/h2>\n

Although leopard, lion and cheetah live together in the<\/strong> same habitat<\/strong> and their prey are often the same, they differ greatly in the way they hunt: <\/p>\n

the leopard assaults its prey by surprise,<\/strong> many times jumping on its back from a tree. In contrast, lions are capable of sprinting , and reach even for short distances up to 80 kilometers per hour. In fact, they need not run faster because that is the speed of their prey: zebras antelopes and gazelles. <\/p>\n

Since the African lion<\/strong>, in running, does not even remotely have the stamina of his victims, he is forced to get as close to them as possible before sprinting briefly to assault his prey, trusting in the instant of terror that will paralyze it. The cheetah, on the other hand, because of its speed record, can afford to be spotted by its prey<\/strong> because it knows it can catch up with its chosen victim. <\/p>\n

And this, perhaps, is why the cheetah is the only feline that hunts during the day. This difference in hunting schedules with its rivals often allows it to avoid the danger of being in turn plundered of its loot by its competitors: lions, leopards, hyenas<\/strong>. If one of these animals encounters a cheetah that has just captured its prey, the cheetah leaves the field without giving battle. It has no fighting spirit.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

And so, about twelve percent of its victims end up in someone else’s stomach. Naturalist George B. Schaller<\/strong> has studied not only the behavior of lions but also that of cheetahs in the Serengeti; and a second monograph was written by zoologist Roland Mc Laughlin<\/strong>, who has been examining the cheetah population in Nairobi National Park<\/strong> for years. <\/p>\n

Adult cheetahs that hunt in groups are an exception<\/h3>\n

Usually, when cheetahs hunt alone, and this is the case in most cases, they always choose prey smaller than themselves. In the Serengeti these are almost always Thomson’s gazelles<\/strong>. In Nairobi National Park it is also often impala, Grant’s gazelles and small wildebeest. However, in both territories, more than half of the victims are young animals. <\/p>\n

Evidently , the cheetah knows who it can reach the easiest and is content<\/strong> with a few fewer grams of food. Also according to specialists’ statistics, in 26 consecutive days a female cheetah, mother of two cubs, kills more than about 20 Thomson’s gazelles and one rabbit. <\/p>\n

From this we infer that females with offspring catch about one prey per day. Solitary specimens, on the other hand, hunt every two or three days. Adult cheetahs rarely hunt together. One exception was a group of four male cheetahs, which had probably made friends in Nairobi National Park. <\/p>\n

Their chances of success were clearly greater than those of solitary hunters, so much so that they also attacked and killed adult buffalo and zebra; prey, in this case, larger than themselves. In general, however, cheetahs are rather solitary.<\/strong> If two adults meet, they change direction and watch each other until one disappears from the sight of the other. Cheetahs do not defend a territory of their own.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Each certainly has its own zone of action, but it may well encroach on that of another cheetah<\/strong> without a fight ensuing. Indeed, in the Serengeti, constant exchanges of territory take place. But it is not the cheetahs that change zones, but Thomson’s gazelles, which continually migrate throughout the year pursued by the felines. <\/p>\n

Wedding and mating of cheetahs<\/h2>\n

Males and females mark their territory with urine; the purpose is clear: it serves as a mating call.It is only at this time that most cheetahs forget their ingrained disregard for their own kind.<\/strong> In any case, the union is of very short duration, and immediately after mating each resumes its own path. <\/p>\n

Until recently, unlike with other felines, it had not been possible to breed cheetahs in captivity. Until 1967, known cases of cheetah births in zoos around the world amounted to only 8. Today it is certain that the group life they are forced to endure in captivity is to blame. <\/p>\n

In fact, they are usually kept in pairs, and given their solitary nature, this is undoubtedly a mistake. George B. Schaller<\/strong> believes that females, in order to become aroused and desire mating, need a male stranger<\/strong>. In fact, he reports on a private zoo, in Italy, where exceptional reproductive results had been obtained, in that as soon as the female was in heat, a male was brought in from a nearby zoo. Since that first experiment, cheetah breeding is now well underway.In the San Diego Zoo alone in the United States, as many as 32 baby cheetahs have been<\/strong> born and bred<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

\"see<\/h3>\n


\n<\/strong>After ninety-five days of gestation<\/strong> the female cheetah gives birth to three or four cubs.<\/strong> In the first three months of life the cubs are smoky gray with indefinable color maculation and a soft blue-gray mane extends from the forehead across the back. In the first six weeks of life, baby cheetahs usually remain hidden in dense bushes. <\/p>\n

Then they begin to follow their mother more and more, even on open ground. It is a dangerous adventure: hyenas, leopards and lions, and even some large raptors, are a constant threat. It is estimated that in the first six weeks of life about half of the baby cheetahs succumb to disease or are killed by other predators.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Those who manage to survive this dangerous period are instructed by their mother in the art of hunting. If until then the cheetah cubs had only observed how the mother behaved during the hunt, from the third month onward things change: the mother brings her offspring some small gazelle still alive. <\/p>\n

But the youngsters’ attempts on that easy prey remain unsuccessful for the long run; it will have to take about a year for the young cheetah to be able to kill on its own.<\/p>\n

At this point the union between mother and child is broken and each goes his or her own way. In much of Asia’s original territories the cheetah has been exterminated.<\/strong> A small number of cheetahs still live in the mountainous areas of northern Iran and probably also in the neighboring Soviet state, Turkmenistan.<\/p>\n

The last cheetahs<\/h2>\n

The Persian government even created a cheetah reserve. All of<\/strong> Black Africa<\/strong>, with the exception of tropical forests and the central Sahara, was populated with cheetahs.<\/strong> In North Africa their numbers were reduced to zero without any criteria (in 1968 a driver ran over a cheetah in Tunisia, but it was definitely a special case: perhaps a cheetah that had escaped its owner). The fast, long-legged feline survives only south of the Sahara. <\/p>\n

Across Africa their numbers seem to range between 3000 and 10000 animals.<\/strong> This is an extremely low number; even more catastrophic is the fact that the export of their skins, legal or not, continues at a steady pace. In 1968, 1283 cheetah skins were legally imported into the United States, and in 1969 as many as 1885. <\/p>\n

The new international conventions for the protection of endangered wildlife species are a first step toward safeguarding these felines. But National Parks cannot guarantee their safety because they are not in a position to provide them with the necessary protection against them increasingly engaging in poaching. <\/p>\n

Killing the cheetah, an animal that does not hide , attempt to flee or assault humans, is certainly not difficult, and can be, unfortunately, very rewarding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have already talked about many of Africa’s characteristic animals that can be encountered on a Tanzania tour, such as Masai lions and cudus, peculiar antelopes, but we are missing one of the most beautiful animals of the Savannah: the Cheetah, the world’s fastest and most elegant feline. The Cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus, is the world’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[372],"tags":[373],"class_list":["post-72974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-african-animals","tag-felines"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/safariavventura.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/safariavventura.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/safariavventura.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safariavventura.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safariavventura.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/safariavventura.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73454,"href":"https:\/\/safariavventura.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72974\/revisions\/73454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safariavventura.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/safariavventura.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safariavventura.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/safariavventura.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}