... the cheetah!
The cheetah is one of Africa's most sought after species when people from this country go on photographic and video safaris. For one thing, it's beautiful; for another, it's one of the best hunters around. It achieves by far the fastest land speed of any living animal — between 70 and 75 mph in short bursts covering distances up to 1,600 ft. It has the ability to accelerate from 0 to over 62 mph in three seconds. Look out, Thomson's gazelles!
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| Cheetah chasing a gazelle. (Click to enlarge.) |
Yet the African cheetah is classified as a "vulnerable" species, meaning its future is uncertain. Approximately 12,400 cheetahs remain in the wild in twenty-five African countries; Namibia has the most, with about 2,500.
There is also an Asiatic cheetah. It's "critically endangered," with just fifty to sixty of them thought to remain in Iran. The Asiatic cheetah is the only animal that has been declared extinct in India in the last 100 years.
Cheetahs have been around since the late Pliocene geologic period, which ended around 2.5 million years ago. They are the only surviving member of the genus Acinonyx, meaning that the cheetah is the only cat with non-retractable claws and paw pads that can't grip. That's why cheetahs can't climb vertical tree trunks!
Here's where cheetahs still live today:
Why have cheetah numbers declined? Lions and hyenas will kill cheetah cubs, of course. And scientists say cheetahs are too inbred, with low genetic diversity leading to various impairments to individual cheetahs' chances of survival. But the low genetic diversity explanation does not account for why that situation has been true for thousands of years, while cheetah numbers have been in decline only for about the last century or so.
If you like cheetahs, try to catch up with a wonderful episode of the PBS series Nature called "The Cheetah Orphans."
You can find a list of the world's endangered species at the Earth's Endangered Species website.
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