Cheetah

Name and taxonomy

The word cheetah comes from Hindi and Urdu, and before that from a Sanskrit word for spotted or painted. Older English writers called it the hunting leopard. Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber described the species in 1777 from a skin taken at the Cape of Good Hope. He called it Felis jubatus, and jubatus is Latin for maned. Joshua Brookes proposed the genus Acinonyx in 1828, a name that probably means fixed claw.

Pocock once gave it a subfamily of its own because it looked so like a greyhound. It now sits in Felinae, the small cats, rather than with the roaring cats of Panthera. In 2017 the IUCN Cat Specialist Group accepted four subspecies. One of them, A. j. venaticus, is the Asiatic cheetah of Iran, and it is rated Critically Endangered on its own. The king cheetah, with blotched spots and stripes down the back, was named a species in 1927 but is only a colour form.

Evolution and relatives

The cheetah's nearest relatives are the cougar and the jaguarundi of the Americas. These three form the Puma lineage, which split from the other cats about 6.7 million years ago. The oldest cheetah fossils are African and 3.5 to 3 million years old, and they belong to larger, slower forms. The modern species turns up in the African record about 1.9 million years ago. A giant cheetah, A. pardinensis, lived across Eurasia and Africa, and a smaller one, A. intermedius, ranged from Europe to China.

North America once had cheetah-like cats, now placed in the genus Miracinonyx. They are closer to the cougar than to the cheetah, so their long legs evolved in parallel. The cheetah went through two population bottlenecks, about 100,000 years ago and again 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. As a result its genetic variation is only 0.1% to 4% of that in an average living species. Skin grafts between unrelated cheetahs heal as if the animals were twins.

Appearance

The cheetah has a slim body, a deep chest, long thin legs and a small head with a short muzzle. The head and body measure 112 to 150 centimetres, and the tail adds 60 to 80 cm. Shoulder height is 67 to 94 cm, and adults weigh 21 to 65 kilograms, with males a little heavier than females. The coat is tawny to pale buff, darker along the middle of the back, with a white chin, throat and belly. Around 2,000 solid black spots, each 3 to 5 cm across, cover the rest of the body. Every cheetah has its own spot pattern.

A black tear streak runs down from each eye to the side of the mouth. No other cat has them, and they may cut the sun's glare or sharpen facial expressions. The ears are small and round, with a black patch behind each. A short rough mane runs along the neck and shoulders, more obvious in males. The last third of the tail carries four to six dark rings and ends in a white tuft.

A leopard has rosettes instead of solid spots and no tear streaks. Cubs wear a long grey mantle of hair down the back that fades as they grow. The claws only partly retract and have no sheath, so they stay blunt, but the dewclaw is sharp.

Habitat and range

In eastern and southern Africa the cheetah lives mainly on savanna such as the Serengeti and the Kalahari. Further north it uses dry mountain ranges and valleys, and in the Sahara it favours high ground with a little more rain. In Iran it lives in hilly desert up to 2,000 to 3,000 metres, where rainfall stays under 100 millimetres a year. It wants open ground with good views, some scattered cover and few lions. It seldom enters tropical forest.

In prehistory the cheetah ranged across Africa and western and central Asia. It has now gone from most of that area, and as of 2017 it held just nine per cent of its former African range. India lost its last wild cheetahs in 1947, when a maharaja shot three in one night. In 2022 eight cheetahs from Namibia were released into Kuno National Park in India as the start of a reintroduction. GBIF holds records from 46 countries, but that count includes zoos and old records, not the living range.

Cheetahs live at low density, usually 0.3 to 3.0 adults per 100 square kilometres. That is only 10% to 30% of the density reported for lions and leopards in the same places. Female home ranges in central Namibia run from 554 to 7,063 square kilometres, because prey there is thin.

Diet and hunting

The cheetah hunts small and medium prey of 20 to 60 kilograms, and most kills weigh under 40 kg. Thomson's gazelle is the main prey in the Serengeti, impala in the woodlands, springbok in the dry south and dama gazelle in the Sahara. Hares, guineafowl and other birds fill in when antelope are scarce. Only male coalitions and mothers with cubs try for bigger animals such as wildebeest or nyala. In Namibia it is the main predator of livestock, which is the root of its conflict with farmers.

The cheetah hunts by sight and by day, often scanning from a termite mound or a low branch. With cover it stalks to about 30 metres, and without it, the chase can start from 60 to 200 metres. A chase averages 37.9 seconds and 173 metres, and the longest run measured was 559 metres. It uses top speed only to close the gap, then follows the prey through three or four zigzag turns. At the end it hooks a leg or the rump with the sharp dewclaw, and the prey falls.

Large prey dies from a throat hold that lasts about 5 minutes, small prey from a bite to the nape or skull. After the kill the cat pants beside it for 20 to 30 minutes before it can eat. That pause is when lions, leopards and hyenas steal the meal. A cheetah loses 9% to 14% of its kills that way, and it rarely fights back. It eats about 4 kg a day on average but can take 10 kg in two hours. Hunting success runs at 25% to 40%, and reaches 70% on Thomson's gazelles in the Serengeti.

Behaviour and social life

The cheetah is mostly active by day, with peaks after dawn and before dusk. That schedule keeps it clear of lions and hyenas, which hunt mainly at night. Where those predators are absent, as on Namibian farmland or in the Sahara, it hunts more at night, especially by moonlight. Groups rest in grassy clearings and take turns keeping watch from raised ground.

Cheetahs live in three kinds of group: a mother with cubs, a male coalition, or a lone male. Females do not defend a territory and roam large home ranges after prey. Two females that spot each other will sit and stare from up to 2 kilometres apart until one walks off. Males, usually brothers from one litter, form coalitions that hold a small territory for life. In the Serengeti about 30% of coalition members are unrelated males that were let in. Coalition males groom each other, call when separated and share kills without much fuss.

A coalition of three in Kruger National Park held 126 square kilometres, and a lone male there held 195. Around 40% of Kalahari males live alone, and some drift between territory and nomad life as females move. Territorial males are healthier and live longer than the nomads. A study in the Kalahari found cheetahs moving nearly 11 kilometres a day on average.

Communication and senses

The cheetah cannot roar, but it is one of the most vocal cats. Its chirp is a short bird-like call, used when excited at a kill, in greeting and by mothers calling hidden cubs. A louder yelp carries up to 2 kilometres and helps mothers and cubs find each other. It purrs like a house cat but much louder, when content or grooming a companion. Growls, hisses and moans come with hard slaps of a front paw on the ground. A bleat means distress, for example when a hyena has just taken the kill.

Scent carries the long-distance messages. A male sprays urine on tree trunks, stumps and rocks, and other cheetahs sniff the spot and add their own. Marking peaks in females in heat, and their scent draws males from far away. Ranchers in Botswana set traps at these marking trees. Close up, cheetahs sniff faces, lick cheeks and rub heads, and the tear streaks make expressions easy to read. The dark rings on the tail probably help cubs follow their mother through grass.

Reproduction and life cycle

Cheetahs breed all year, with a birth peak in the Serengeti rainy season. A female cycles about every 12 days and ovulates only after mating. Males fight over her, and she may mate with more than one. A pair mates three to five times a day for two or three days, then parts. Gestation lasts about 93 days.

The litter is large for a cat: three or four cubs is usual, and up to six in the wild. A wild cub weighs 150 to 300 grams at birth, and its eyes open at 4 to 11 days. The mother hides the cubs in thick grass, a thicket or a rocky spot for about eight weeks. She moves them every five or six days and stays within 1 kilometre of the lair. The grey mantle on a cub's back may make it look like a honey badger, an animal predators avoid.

At two months the cubs follow their mother and start on meat. Weaning ends at four to six months, and she brings them live prey to practise on. Cubs chase hares and fawns from six months but may not make a kill of their own until 15 months. They leave their mother at around 20 months, and siblings stay together a few months more. Females first breed at two to three years and wait 17 to 20 months between litters. A wild cheetah rarely lives past 8 years, and the captive record is 20.5.

Predators and threats

Lions, leopards and spotted hyenas kill cheetah cubs, and cub mortality is the highest of any cat not hunted by people. In the Serengeti, predators caused 58.3% of cub deaths, and in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park 88.9%. Only about a third of cubs reach independence. Adults usually run rather than fight, and they give up kills to lions and hyenas. A leopard killed an adult cheetah during one study in Iran.

The larger threats come from people. Farms, industry and bush encroachment eat into the open habitat the cheetah needs. About 76% of its range lies outside protected land, so farmers in Namibia and elsewhere shoot or trap cheetahs that take stock. Cubs are smuggled out of the Horn of Africa for the pet trade, and some Maasai still use skins in ceremonies. Cars kill cheetahs on roads through Iranian reserves. Low genetic variation leaves the species open to disease.

Population and conservation

The IUCN Red List rates the cheetah Vulnerable. The world population was put at about 7,100 mature animals in 2016 and 6,517 in 2021. The largest group, close to 4,000, is spread thinly across six countries of southern Africa, from Angola to Mozambique. Kenya and Tanzania hold about 1,000 more. Every other population has fewer than 100 animals, and the Asiatic cheetah in Iran fell to 43 by 2016.

Sub-Saharan Africa held an estimated 15,000 cheetahs in 1975, after the first proper survey. South Africa lists the species as Vulnerable, and the Mediterranean population is rated Endangered. CITES Appendix I bans commercial trade, though Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana keep small annual quotas. The United States lists the cheetah as Endangered.

The Cheetah Conservation Fund, founded in Namibia in 1990, runs research, farmer education and the only cheetah genetics lab. A range-wide programme for cheetahs and wild dogs began in 2007 under the IUCN specialist groups. Iran launched its Asiatic cheetah project in 2001 and marks a National Cheetah Day on 31 August. Malawi brought cheetahs back in 2017, and India's Kuno cheetahs had produced 17 cubs by 2024, though 12 animals had died.

Relationship with humans

The cheetah has been tamed for thousands of years, though never truly domesticated. Egyptians, Sumerians and Assyrians kept hunting cheetahs, and a Sumerian seal of about 3000 BC may show one on a leash. New Kingdom pharaohs walked cheetahs on collars, and Egyptians believed the animal carried a dead king's spirit away. Arab, Persian and Indian nobles rode to the hunt with a hooded cheetah on the saddle and let it go near the game. The Mughal emperor Akbar is said to have kept 1000 cheetahs, and only one ever gave birth.

London Zoo took the first captive cheetah in 1829, and early zoo animals lived just three or four years. In 2014 there were about 1730 captive cheetahs in the world, 87% of them born in captivity. Captive breeding is hard: Serengeti females bred with 95% success against 20% for North American zoo cheetahs. Stress makes captive cheetahs ill, so zoos give them space and handle them little.

No wild cheetah has ever been recorded killing a person. Captive cheetahs have killed twice: a woman in a Belgian zoo in 2007, and a small child on a South African farm in 2017. Cheetahs draw tourists, but farmers shoot them as pests where they take goats and calves.

In culture and myth

The oldest known pictures of cheetahs are in the Chauvet Cave in France, painted 32,000 to 26,000 years BC. In ancient Egypt the goddess Mafdet, worshipped in the First Dynasty, was sometimes shown as a cheetah. Rock carvings of cheetahs at Twyfelfontein in Namibia are 2000 to 6000 years old. The Romans took the cheetah for a leopard-lion hybrid, misled by the cub's mane. A fourth century mosaic from Lod in Israel shows a Roman hunting cheetah.

Tang dynasty paintings show cheetahs on leashes and riding on horses, and Chinese emperors gave them as gifts. In Manicaland, Zimbabwe, people called the king cheetah nsuifisi and believed a leopard had bred with a hyena. Titian painted two cheetahs pulling the chariot of Bacchus in the 16th century. George Stubbs recorded a cheetah given to King George III in 1764, hooded and held by two Indian attendants.

Today the cheetah stands for speed, grace and fragility in advertising and animation. In Iran the Asiatic cheetah has become a symbol of rarity and survival, and it appears in public campaigns. Spirit-animal writers link it to adaptability and quick decisions, but that seems to be modern invention rather than folklore.