how are leopards, cheetas and jaguars different from each other?

Answer 1

size

Answer 2

Jaguars and leopards are from genus Panthera and cheetas are from genus Acynonix,in fact,they are only subspecies in Acynonix Genus,with Latin name Acynonix jubatus.They are slimmer from regular big cats,and their claws are straight.Their spot marking is big and full black spot and their skin have light brown colour.Leopards have yellow skin and their spot marking is shaped a black line that form a circle,but the centre of the circle is empty.Jaguars are 3rd biggest cat in the world,and their skin coloured yellowish-red.Their spot marking shaped a black circle with yellow circle in the middle,and 2 to 4 smaller spot in that circle.

Answer 3

The lion can be distinguished (if a male) by it's mane. If it is a female it is spotless and has a goldy yellow tint. The cheetah has dots all over its body and can maintain a speed of seventy miles per hour for about a minute. The leopard has spots and is very good at clibing trees.

Answer 4

leopards and jaguar are in the same genus: Panthera. Cheetahs are in their own genus : Acinonyx. They are the ONLY cat in this genus...they are unlike any other cat in that their claws are NOT retractable. Jaguars live in S. American, Cheetahs and leopards live in Africa. Leopards are also found in parts of Asia.

Answer 5

jaguars love water. leopards climb trees. cheetahs are very fast runners.

Answer 6

Size, colour, markings, speed and loads of other things.

Answer 7

They are different sub species

Answer 8

different species, look em up.

Answer 9

Leopards (Panthera pardus) are one of the four 'big cats' of the genus Panthera. They range in size from one to almost two metres long, and generally weigh between 30 and 70 kg. Some males may grow over 90 kgs. Females are typically around two-thirds the size of males. For its size, the leopard is the most powerful feline in the world next to the jaguar.

Most leopards are light tan or fawn with black rosettes, but their coat color is highly variable. There are smaller rosettes and spots on the head.

Originally, it was thought that a leopard was a hybrid between a lion and a panther, and the leopard's common name derives from this belief; leo is the Latin word for lion, and pard is an old term meaning panther. In fact, a "panther" can be any of several species of large felid. In North America panther means puma and in South America a panther is a jaguar. Elsewhere in the world a panther is a leopard. Early naturalists distinguished between leopards and panthers not by color (a common misconception), but by the length of the tail - panthers having longer tails than pards (leopards).

A black panther is a melanistic leopard (or melanistic jaguar). These have mutations that cause them to produce more black pigment (eumelanin) than orange-tan pigment (pheomelanin). This results in a chiefly black coat, though the spots of a black panther can still be discerned in certain light as the deposition of pigment is different in the pattern than in the background. There are also white panthers.

Despite its size, this largely nocturnal and arboreal predator is difficult to see in the wild. The best location to see leopards in Africa is in the Sabi Sand Private Game Reserve in South Africa, where leopards are habituated to safari vehicles and are seen on a daily basis at very close range. In Asia, perhaps the best site is the Yala National Park in Sri Lanka, which has the world's highest density of wild leopards, but even here sightings are by no means guaranteed because more than half the park is closed off to the public, allowing the animals to thrive. The recently reopened Wilpattu National Park (also in Sri Lanka), is another good destination for leopard watching.


Subspecies

Indian Leopard

There have been as many as 30 subspecies of leopard suggested, however most of these are questionable. Recently it has been proposed that all sub-saharan leopards are the same subspecies (Panthera pardus pardus), as they do not have sufficient gentetic distinction between them.
African Leopard*, Panthera pardus pardus (lower risk, least concern)
Amur Leopard*, Panthera pardus orientalis (critically endangered)
Anatolian Leopard, Panthera pardus tulliana (critically endangered or possibly extinct)
Arabian Leopard or South Arabian Leopard, Panthera pardus nimr (critically endangered)
Barbary Leopard, Panthera pardus panthera (critically endangered)
Indian Leopard*, Panthera pardus fusca (lower risk, least concern)
Indo-Chinese Leopard*, Panthera pardus delacouri (vulnerable)
Java Leopard*, Panthera pardus meas (endangered)
North China Leopard*, Panthera pardus japonensis (vulnerable)
Persian Leopard or Iranian Leopard*, Panthera pardus saxicolor (endangered)
Sinai Leopard or Judean Desert Leopard, Panthera pardus jarvisi (critically endangered
Sri Lanka Leopard*, Panthera pardus kotiya (endangered)
Zanzibar Leopard, Panthera pardus adersi (extinct)
[edit]

Extinct Subspecies

Besides these subspecies there are also some prehistoric ones.
Panthera palaeosinensis (a primitive leopard)
Panthera pardoides (a primitive leopard)
Panthera schaubi (a short-faced leopard)


King Leopard

A pseudo-melanistic leopard has a normal background colour, but its excessive markings have coalesced so that its back seems to be an unbroken expanse of black. In some specimens, the area of solid black extends down the flanks and limbs; only a few lateral streaks of golden-brown indicate the presence of normal background colour. Any spots on the flanks and limbs that have not merged into the mass of swirls and stripes are unusually small and discrete, rather than forming rosettes. The face and underparts are paler and dappled like those of ordinary spotted leopards.

In a paper about panthers and ounces of Asia, Pocock used a photo of a leopard skin from southern India; it had large black-rimmed blotches, each containing a number of dots and it resembled the pattern of a jaguar or clouded leopard. Another of Pocock's leopard skins from southern India had the normal rosettes broken up and fused and so much additional pigment that the animal looked like a black leopard streaked and speckled with yellow.

Most other colour morphs of leopards are known only from paintings or museum specimens. There have been very rare examples where the spots of a normal black leopard have coalesced to give a jet black leopard with no visible markings. Pseudo-melanism (abundism) occurs in leopards. The spots are more densely packed than normal and merge to largely obscure the background colour. They may form swirls and, in some places, solid black areas. Unlike a true black leopard the tawny background colour is visible in places. One pseudo-melanistic leopard had a tawny orange coat with coalescing rosettes and spots, but white belly with normal black spots (like a black-and-tan dog).

In Harmsworth Natural History (1910), R Lydekker described pseudo-melanistic leopard: There is, however, a peculiar dark phase in South Africa, a specimen of which was obtained in 1885 in hilly land covered with scrub-jungle, near Grahamstown. The ground-colour of this animal was a rich tawny, with an orange tinge; but the spots, instead of being of the usual rosette-like form, were nearly all small and solid, like those on the head of an ordinary leopard; while from the top of the head to near the root of the tail the spots became almost confluent, producing the appearance of a broad streak of black running down the back. A second skin had the black area embracing nearly the whole of the back and flanks, without showing any trace of the spots, while in those portions of the skin where the latter remained they were of the same form as in the first specimen. Two other specimens are known; the whole four having been obtained from the Albany district. These dark-coloured South African leopards differ from the black leopards of the northern and eastern parts of Africa and Asia in that while in the latter the rosette-like spots are always retained and clearly visible, in the former the rosettes are lost - as, indeed, is to a considerable extent often the case in ordinary African leopards - and all trace of spots disappears from the blacker portions of the skin.

Another pseudo-melanistic leopard skin was described in 1915 by Holdridge Ozro Collins who had purchased it in 1912. It had been killed in Malabar, India that same year. The wide black portion, which glistens like the sheen of silk velvet, extends from the top of the head to the extremity of the tail entirely free from any white or tawny hairs ... In the tiger, the stripes are black, of a uniform character, upon a tawny background, and they run in parallel lines from the centre of the back to the belly. In this skin, the stripes are almost golden yellow, without the uniformity and parallelism of the tiger characteristics, and they extend along the sides in labyrinthine graceful curls and circles, several inches below the wide shimmering black continuous course of the back. The extreme edges around the legs and belly are white and spotted like the skin of a leopard ... The skin is larger than that of a leopard but smaller than that of a full grown tiger.

In May 1936, the British Natural History Museum exhibited the mounted skin of an unusual Somali leopard. The pelt was richly decorated with an intricate pattern of swirling stripes, blotches, curls and fine-line traceries. This is different from a spotted leopard, but similar to a King Cheetah hence the modern cryptozoology term King Leopard. Between 1885 and 1934, six pseudo-melanistic leopards were recorded in the Albany and Grahamstown districts of South Africa. This indicated a mutation in the local leopard population. Other King Leopards have been recorded from Malabar in southwestern India. Shooting for trophies may have wiped out these populations.


Distinguishing features

The big cats, especially the spotted cats, are easy to confuse for those who see them in captivity or in photographs. The leopard is closely related to, and appears very similar to, the jaguar; it is less often confused with the cheetah. The ranges, habitats, and activities of the three cats make them easy to distinguish in the wild.

Since wild leopards live only in Africa and Asia while wild jaguars live only in the Americas, there is no possibility of confusing them in the wild. There are also visual markings that set them apart. Leopards do not have the spots within the rosettes that jaguars always have, and the jaguar's spots are larger than the leopard's (see the photographs in jaguar). The Amur leopard and the North Chinese leopard are occasional exceptions. The leopard is smaller and less stocky than the jaguar, although it is more heavyset than the cheetah.

Besides appearance, the leopard and jaguar have similar behavior patterns. Jaguars can adapt to a range of habitats from rainforest to ranchlands while leopards are even more adaptable ranging in from deserts and mountains, savanna and woodlands.

The cheetah, although its range overlaps extensively with that of the leopard, is easily distinguished. The leopard is heavier, stockier, has a larger head in proportion to the body, and has rosettes rather than spots. The cheetah tends to run rather fast and goes much more quickly than the leopard. The cheetah also has dark 'teardrop'-like markings running down the sides of its face, whereas the leopard does not. Cheetahs are usually diurnal, while leopards are more active at night (nocturnal); cheetahs are also exclusively terrestrial (except when young), while leopards often climb trees.


Distribution and conservation

Prior to the human-induced changes of the last few hundred years, Leopards were the most widely distributed of all felids other than the domestic cat: they were found through most of Africa (with the exception of the Sahara Desert), as well as parts of Asia Minor. They are still found in the Middle East, India, Pakistan, China, Siberia, much of mainland South-East Asia, and the islands of Java and Sri Lanka.

The leopard is doing surprisingly well for a large predator. It is estimated that there are as many as 500,000 leopards worldwide. But like many other big cats, leopards are increasingly under threat of habitat loss and are facing increased hunting pressure. Because of their stealthy habits and camouflage, they can go undetected even in close proximity to human settlements. Despite the leopard's abilities, it is no match for habitat destruction and poachers, and several subspecies are endangered, namely, the Amur, Anatolian, Barbary, North Chinese, and South Arabian leopards

A belief is that there may be some leopards in the wild in the United Kingdom, but this has not been proven.






Jaguar






Jaguar
Conservation status: Near threatened

Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Mammalia
Order:Carnivora
Family:Felidae
Genus:Panthera
Species:P. onca

Binomial name
Panthera onca
(Linnaeus, 1758)


The jaguar (Panthera onca) are mammals of the Felidae family and one of four "big cats" in the panthera genus. It is closely related to the lion, tiger, and leopard of the Old World, and is the largest and most powerful feline in the Western Hemisphere. It is the third largest feline after the lion and tiger.


Physical characteristics

To some, jaguars look very much like leopards, but they are sturdier and heavier. The easiest way to distinguish a jaguar from a leopard, beside the jaguar’s much more powerful build, is by the rosettes. The rosettes on a jaguar’s coat are larger, fewer in number, and usually darker with thicker lines that enclose smaller spots. The head of the jaguar is more round and it has shorter, stockier limbs. Because of this the jaguar is sometimes referred to as the “bulldog” of the cat world. The Jaguar, in a recent National Geographic special titled “In Search of the Jaguar,” was named pound for pound the strongest animal in the world.

Jaguars vary from 5.3 to 6 feet (1.62 to 1.83 m) in length, excluding 30 in (0.76 m) tail, stand around 67 to 76 cm (27 to 30 inches) tall at the shoulder, and weigh between 56 and 96 kg (124 and 211 lb) with larger individuals, recorded by scientists, weighing between 131 and 151 kg (288 to 333 lb). Females are typically twenty percent smaller than males. Jaguars in southern Mexico and Central America are typically smaller, 56 kg and 40 kg (123 lb and 90 lb) for males and females respectively.

Jaguars are powerful animals for their size."They are powerful enough to drag an 800-pound [363 kg] bull 25 feet [8 m] in its jaws and pulverize the heaviest bones." Throughout the evolution history of mammals, the size and power of predators are proportional to those of their preys. A predator needs to be strong and fast enough to catch its prey. Jaguars hunt wild animals in the range of 300 kg and below in dense jungle, and therefore, their short and sturdy physique is an adaptation to hunt those preys in that environment.


Habitat

The range of the jaguar

The jaguar's habitat ranges from the rain forests of South and Central America to marshy and even desert terrain in Mexico, but they are rarely seen in mountainous regions. The jaguar's wide range means that it should not be in danger of extinction in the foreseeable future. The species has declined numbers in some areas due to habitat loss, especially in rain forests and grassland turned into cropland and hunting for their pelts.

Known for their strong swimming abilities, the jaguar is one of the few cats besides tigers that enjoy water. They often prefer to live by rivers, swamps, and in dense forest with thick cover for stalking prey. Jaguars, on rare occasions, are seen as far north as the southwestern United States, particularly in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. In the early 1900s, the jaguars' range actually extended as far north as Southern California and western Texas. As recently as 2004, wildlife officials in Arizona have photographed and documented jaguars in the southern parts of the state. Presently it is unclear whether recent sightings indicate whether there is a permanent population developing in the Southwest or that these cats are simply transients straying over the border from Sonora, Mexico. However, jaguars are a protected species in the United States under the Endangered Species Act and are considered nongame, therefore making it illegal to shoot a jaguar for its pelt. Fossils of jaguars from as far north as Missouri confirm these cats inhabited much of the Southern U.S. during prehistoric times. These prehistoric jaguars were significantly larger than the jaguars of today.


Taxonomy


Species

Today recognised species:
Panthera onca

There are also prehistoric (sub)species:
Panthera toscana (Tuscany jaguar)
Panthera gombaszoegensis (European jaguar)


Ecological role

A Jaguar in a wildlife rescue & rehabilitation centre in Argentina

The ecological role of the jaguar most closely resembles the tiger. They are considered an umbrella species. An umbrella species is defined as a species that generally cover large areas in their daily or seasonal movements. They serve as "mobile links" at the landscape scale, through predation, seed dispersal or pollination. Protecting enough habitat and connectivity to assure viable population of these organisms benefits many other species more restricted in their range. The jaguar is an apex predator. They can run at amazingly high speeds, using its speed to catch its prey.


Prey

Jaguars are hunters that do not work with one another outside the breeding season. They hunt around 85 different species including: deer, tapirs, peccaries, and even caiman, up to a certain size. They are opportunists and will take anything from frogs, mice, birds, fish, to domestic livestock. A jaguar's bite can pierce the shell of a turtle (Emmons, 1987). Jaguars are considered a stalk and ambush predator and are not meant to run over long distances but prefer to surprise unsuspecting prey.

The jaguar uses a different killing method from most cats to kill its prey. Instead of biting the neck, to suffocate or sever the spinal cord, the jaguar delivers a fatal bite directly to the skull, piercing the brain. It is because of this killing technique that jaguars often break teeth as they progress in age. Jaguars eat up to 10-70 pounds (5-32 kg) of food daily.


Reproduction

A cub is groomed by its mother.

Young jaguar males reach sexual maturity at about three to four years of age, with females reaching maturity about a year earlier than males. Females give birth to as many as four cubs after a 90 to 110 day gestation, but raise no more than two of them to adulthood. The young are born blind and can see after two weeks. They remain with their mother for up to two years before leaving to establish a territory for themselves, which can be anywhere between 25 and 150 square kilometers in size (depending on the availability of suitable prey). Typical lifespan is 10 or 11 years in the wild; in captivity, jaguars have lived up to 20 years.


The jaguar in Central and South American culture


The word jaguar comes from the South American Tupi-Guarani language. According to one early European explorer, jaguara meant "a beast that kills its prey with one bound." However, this is incorrect. Jaguara refers to any carnivorous animal. The original and complete indigenous name for the species is Yaguareté, where -eté means "true". Curiously, Yagua means "fierce" in Guarani. Jaguar is also a royal title bestowed to a royal prince, princess or ruling monarch in some Maya traditions such as that of the Lencas.

In Central and South America the jaguar has long been a symbol of power and strength. To the pre_Columbian Maya civilization, the jaguar was believed to communicate between the living and the dead, as well as protect the royal household. The Maya saw these powerful felines as their companions in the spiritual world. The Aztec civilization also had the same image of the jaguar as the representative of the ruler and as a warrior. The Aztecs formed an elite warrior class known as the jaguar knights. In Aztec mythology, the jaguar was also considered to be the totem animal of the powerful deity Tezcatlipoca.


Melanism

A melanistic form of jaguar.

The background of the coat is usually an orange-yellow in colour, with numerous rings or rosettes on the flanks and spots on the head and neck. A condition known as melanism occasionally occurs and can create jaguars that appear entirely black (although the spots are still visible if one looks closely). These are known as black panthers, but do not form a separate species.


Hybridization

Jaguars are occasionally mated with other big cats such as the lion, tiger and leopard. These hybridizations are usually carried out in controlled environments. For more information hybrid cats see Panthera hybrid.


Trivia

The crushing force of a jaguar's jaws is 600 psi (41 bar), according to Discovery channel. However, little is known about the method of measurement. The result of this measurement was used to construct simulated species for the Animal Face-off TV show.




Cheetah




Cheetah
Conservation status: Vulnerable[1]

Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Mammalia
Order:Carnivora
Family:Felidae
Genus:Acinonyx
Brookes, 1828
Species:A. jubatus

Binomial name
Acinonyx jubatus
(Schreber, 1775)


The Cheetah (derived from Sanskrit word Chitraka meaning "Speckled") (Acinonyx jubatus) is an atypical member of the cat family (Felidae) that hunts by speed rather than by stealth or pack tactics. It is one of the fastest of all land animals and can reach speeds of up to 64 mph (103 km/h or 29 m/s) in short bursts up to 500 yards (457 meters).[2] The cheetah is well known for its amazing acceleration (0-100 km/h in 3.5 seconds which is faster than the SLR McLaren, the Lamborghini Murciélago and the F/A-18 Hornet).

Description

The cheetah has a slender, long-legged body with blunt semi-retractile claws. Its chest is deep and its waist is narrow. Its coat is tan with small, round, black spots, and the fur is coarse and short. The cheetah has a small head with high-set eyes. Black "tear marks," which run from the corner of its eyes down the sides of the nose to its mouth, keep the sun out of its eyes, and aid in hunting and seeing long distances.

The adult animal weighs from 40 to 65 kg (90 to 140 lb). Its total body length is from 112 to 135 cm (45 in to 55 in), while the tail can measure up to 84 cm (33 in). Male cheetahs are slightly larger than females and have a slightly bigger head, but it is difficult to tell males and females apart by appearance alone.

A Cheetah in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

The fur of the cheetah is yellow with round black spots, which help to camouflage it, and distinctive black tear lines on the sides of the muzzle. The cheetah’s coat is tan, or buff colored, with black spots measuring from ¾ to 1¼ inches across (2–3 cm). There are no spots on its white belly, and the tail has spots which merge to form four to six dark rings at the end. The cheetah's tail usually ends in a bushy white tuft. Cheetahs also have a rare fur pattern mutation: cheetahs with larger, blotchy, merged spots are known as 'King Cheetahs'. It was once thought to be a separate subspecies, but it is merely a mutation of the African Cheetah. A 'King Cheetah' has only been seen in the wild a handful of times, but they have been bred in captivity


The cheetah's paws have semi-retractable claws, unique among cat species, which offer the cat extra grip in its high-speed pursuits. It should be noted that the ligament structure of the cheetah's claws is the same as those of other cats; it simply lacks the sheath of skin and fur present in other varieties, and therefore the claws are always visible. With the exception of the dewclaw, the claw itself is also much shorter and straighter than other cats.

The cheetah's flexible spine, oversized liver, enlarged heart, wide nostrils, increased lung capacity, and thin muscular body make this cat the swiftest hunter in Africa. Covering 7-8 meters in a stride, with only one foot touching the ground at a time, the cheetah can reach a speed of 110 km/h in seconds. At two points in the stride, none of its feet touch the ground.

Unlike true big cats, cheetahs can purr as they inhale, but cannot roar. By contrast, lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars can roar but cannot purr, except while exhaling. However, cheetahs are still considered by many to be the smallest of the big cats. While it is often mistaken for a leopard, the cheetah does have distinguishing features, such as the long tear-drop shaped lines on each side of its nose that run from the corner of its eyes to its mouth. The body frame of a cheetah is also very different from that of the leopard, most notably so in its thinner and extra long tail.

The cheetah is a vulnerable species. Out of all the big cats, it is the least able to adapt to new environments. They have always proved difficult to breed in captivity, but recently a few zoos have been successful. Once widely shot for its fur, the cheetah now suffers more from the loss of both habitat and prey.

The cheetah is considered the most primitive of all cats, and until recently was thought to have evolved approximately 18 million years ago, although new research puts the last common ancestor of all 37 existing species of feline more recently, at 11 million years. The cheetah has lions and hyenas as natural enemies.


Classification

The genus name, Acinonyx, means "no-move-claw" in Greek, while the species name, jubatus, means "maned" in Latin, a reference to the mane found in cheetah cubs. It is the only cat that cannot completely retract its claws. Even when retracted,the claws remain visible and are used for grip during the cheetah's acceleration and maneuvering, performing the same function as canine claws.

The English word "cheetah" comes from Hindi chiitaa, which is perhaps derived from Sanskrit chitraka, meaning "the spotted one". Other major European languages use variants of the medieval Latin gattus pardus, meaning "cat-leopard i.e spotted cat": French guépard; Italian ghepardo; Spanish and Portuguese guepardo (also used chita); and German Gepard.


Reproduction and social life

Cheetahs in Masai Mara game reserve, Kenya

Cheetah acquires sexual maturity in 20 to 24 months. Mating season is throughout the year. Females give birth to one to five kittens¹ after a gestation of ninety to ninety-five days. The kittens weigh from 150 to 300 g (5 to 10 oz.) at birth. Unlike some other cats, cheetahs are born with their characteristic spots. Cheetah kittens are also born with a downy underlying fur on their necks, extending to mid-back. This gives them a mane or mohawk type appearance, this fur is shed as the cheetahs grow older. Death-rate is very high during the early weeks and up to 90% of the kittens are killed during this time by lions, hyenas or even by eagles. They leave their mother between thirteen and twenty months after birth. The cheetah can live over twenty years, but their life is often short, for they lose their speed with old age. Unlike other felines, the adult females do not have true territories and seem to avoid each other, though some mother/daughter pairs have been known to continue for small periods of time. Cheetahs have a unique, well-structured social order. Females live alone except when they are raising cubs. The females raise the cubs on their own. The first 18 months of a cub's life are important - cubs learn many lessons because survival depends on knowing how to hunt wild prey species and avoid other predators such as leopards, lions, hyenas, and baboons. At 18 months, the mother leaves the cubs, who then form a sibling group, that will stay together for another 6 months. At about 2 years, the female siblings leave the group, and the young males remain together for life. Males live alone or in coalitions made up of brothers from the same litter. Some coalitions maintain territories in order to find females with which they will mate. Territories are often located in areas where there is a rich supply of wild game and/or water. Fierce fights between male coalitions, resulting in serious injury or death, can occur when defending territories. Coalitions of many male cheetahs are much more successful at winning and keeping territories than the ones who live alone. Life span is up to 12 years in wild, but up to 20 years in captivity.

Diet

Cheetahs are carnivores, eating mostly mammals under 40 kg (90 lb), including Thomson's gazelles and impala. Wildebeest and calves are hunted when cheetahs hunt together. Guinea fowl and hares are also hunted. While the other big cats mainly hunt by night, the cheetah is a diurnal hunter. It hunts usually either early in the morning or later in the evening when it is not so hot, but there is still enough light - cheetahs hunt by vision rather than by scent. Prey is stalked to within ten to thirty meters (30-100 ft), then chased. Using their tails to maintain balance, cheetahs can make sharp turns if needed. Cheetahs are able to run at 60-70 miles an hour, but they chase their prey at only about half the speed. The chase is usually over in less than a minute and if the cheetah fails to make a quick catch, it will often give up rather than waste energy. Another reason a cheetah may give up is because running at such high speeds puts a great deal of strain on the cheetah's body, so they never run at top speed. The cheetah's body temperature becomes so high that it would be deadly to continue - this is why cheetahs are often seen resting even after they have caught their prey. If it is a hard chase, they sometimes need to rest for half an hour or more. Roughly half of their chases are successful. The cheetah kills its prey by tripping it during the chase, then biting it on the underside of the throat to suffocate it, for the cheetah is not strong enough to break the necks of the gazelles it mainly hunts. Then the cheetah proceeds to devour its catch as quickly as possible, for it is unable to defend itself against lions and hyenas.

Habitat

The range of the cheetah

Cheetahs thrive in areas with vast expanses of land where prey is abundant. In Namibia cheetahs have been found in a variety of habitats, including grasslands, savannahs, dense vegetation, and mountainous terrain. Ninety-five percent live on commercial farms. Cheetahs are found in the wild primarily in Africa, but in the past their range extended into northern and southern India. Conservationists using camera traps have recently discovered surviving populations in Iran and are taking steps to protect them. In much of their former range they were domesticated by aristocrats and used to hunt antelopes in much the same way as is still done with members of the greyhound group of dogs. Aside from an estimated 200 cheetahs living in Iran (Khorasan Province), the distribution of cheetahs is now limited to Africa. There are 5 subspecies of cheetah in the genus Acinonyx: four in Africa and one in Iran. The endangered subspecies Acinonyx jubatus venaticus lives in Asia (Iran). In 1990, there were reports in the Times of India of a cheetah sighting in eastern India. There is a chance some cheetahs remain in India, though it is doubtful. There have also been reports of Asiatic cheetahs in the Balochistan Province of Pakistan, though these continue to be unverified. The cheetah prefers to live in an open biotope, such as semi-desert, prairie, and thick brush.

Genetics

Cheetah mother with cub.

Cheetahs have unusually low genetic variability and high abnormal sperm count. Skin grafts between non-related cheetahs illustrate this point in that there is no rejection of the donor skin. It is thought that they went through a prolonged period of inbreeding following a genetic bottleneck during the last ice age. They probably evolved in Africa during the Miocene epoch (26 million to 7.5 million years ago), before migrating to Asia. New research by a team lead by Warren Johnson and Stephen O’Brien of the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity (National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland, US) has recently placed the last common ancestor of all existing cat species as living in Asia c. 11 million years ago, which may lead to revision and refinement of existing ideas about cheetah evolution. Now extinct species include: Acinonyx pardinensis (Pliocene epoch), much larger than modern cheetahs and found in Europe, India, and China; Acinonyx intermedius (mid-Pleistocene period), found over the same range. The extinct genus Miracinonyx was extremely cheetah-like, but recent DNA analysis has shown that Miracinonyx inexpectatus, Miracinonyx studeri, and Miracinonyx trumani (early to late Pleistocene epoch), found in North America and called the "North American Cheetah" are not true cheetahs, instead being close relatives to the puma.


King Cheetah

A King Cheetah

The king cheetah was first noted in Zimbabwe in 1926. In 1927, the naturalist Reginald Innes Pocock declared it a separate species, but reversed this decision in 1939 due to lack of evidence. In 1928, a skin purchased by Lord Rothschild was found to be intermediate in pattern between the king cheetah and spotted cheetah and Abel Chapman considered it to be a colour form of the spotted cheetah. 22 such skins were found between 1926 and 1974. Since 1927, king cheetahs were reported 5 more times in the wild. Although strangely marked skins had come from Africa, a live king cheetah was not photographed until 1974 in South Africa's Kruger National Park. Cryptozoologists Paul and Lena Bottriell photographed one during an expedition in 1975. They also managed to obtain stuffed specimens. It appeared larger than a spotted cheetah and its fur had a different texture. There was another wild sighting in 1986 - the first for 7 years. By 1987, 38 specimens had been recorded, many from pelts.

Its species status was resolved in 1981 when king cheetahs were born at the De Wildt Cheetah Center in South Africa. In May 1981, two spotted sisters gave birth there and each litter contained one king cheetah. The sisters had both mated with a wild-caught male from the Transvaal area (where King Cheetahs had been recorded). Further King Cheetahs were later born at the Centre. This mutation has been reported in Zimbabwe, Botswana and in the northern part of South Africa's former Transvaal province.


Other Cheetah Color Morphs

Other rare color morphs included speckled cheetahs, melanistic cheetahs, albino cheetahs and grayish cheetahs. Most were reported in Indian cheetahs, particularly in captive specimens kept for hunting.

The Mughal Emperor of India, Jahangir, recorded having a white cheetah presented to him in 1608. In the memoirs of Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, the Emperor says that in the third year of his reign: Raja Bir Singh Deo brought a white cheetah to show me. Although other sorts of creatures, both birds and beasts have white varieties .... I had never seen a white cheetah. Its spots, which are (usually) black, were of a blue colour, and the whiteness of the body also inclined to blue-ishness. This suggests a chinchilla mutation which restricts the amount of pigment on the hair shaft. Although the spots were formed of black pigment, the less dense pigmentation gives a hazy, grayish effect. As well as Jahangir's white cheetah at Agra, a report of "incipient albinism" has come from Beaufort West according to Guggisberg.

In a letter to "Nature in East Africa", HF Stoneham reported a melanistic cheetah (black with ghost markings) in the Trans-Nzoia District of Kenya in 1925. Vesey Fitzgerald saw a melanistic cheetah in Zambia in the company of a spotted cheetah. Red (erythristic) cheetahs have dark tawny spots on a golden background. Cream (isabelline) cheetahs have pale red spots on a pale background. Some desert region cheetahs are unusually pale; probably they are better camouflaged and therefore better hunters and more likely to breed and pass on their paler colouration. Blue (maltese or gray) cheetahs have variously been described as white cheetahs with grey-blue spots (chinchilla) or pale grey cheetahs with darker grey spots (maltese mutation). A cheetah with hardly any spots was shot in Tanzania on 1921 (Pocock), it had only a few spots on the neck and back and these were unusually small.


Woolly Cheetah

Woolly cheetahs were variants of cheetahs that had longer, denser fur. They have been reported several times and were thought to be a separate species. The reports came in the 1800s when unusual specimens were shot rather than captured alive, hence the mutation has apparently vanished. Woolly cheetahs had thicker bodies and stouter limbs than normal cheetahs though this may be an optical illusion caused by the long hair. They had dense, woolly hair especially on the tail and neck where it formed a ruff or mane. The long fur made the normal spotted cheetah pattern indistinct and the animals appeared pale fawn with dark, round blotches. Long hair in cats is due to recessive genes, so the pertinent gene here may still be present in a few individuals. However, the cheetah gene pool is unusually uniform so the lack of modern longhaired cheetahs means the mutation has probably vanished.

In 1877, Philip Sclater of the Zoological Society of London wrote of a recent acquisition by the zoo: It presents generally the appearance of a cheetah, but is thicker in the body, and has shorter and stouter limbs, and a much thicker tail. When adult it will probably be considerably larger than the cheetah, and is larger even now than our three specimens of that animal. The fur is much more woolly and dense than in the cheetah, as is particularly noticeable on the ears, mane and tail.

The whole of the body is of a pale isabelline colour, rather paler on the belly and lower parts, but covered all over, including the belly, with roundish dark fulvous blotches. There are no traces of the black spots which are so conspicuous in all of the varieties of the cheetah which I have seen, nor of the characteristic black line between the mouth and eye.

Although described as blotched, a painting of the cheetah depicts it as freckled and the artist mistakenly added "eyeliner" markings which were not present in the actual specimen. In 1878, a second woolly cheetah was reported as a preserved specimen in the South African Museum. Both the London and South African specimens had come from Beaufort West. In 1884, a third skin was obtained from the same area, though this had more distinct spots and was a little smaller. By the 1880s, the trophy hunters had eliminated the woolly cheetah.

In Harmsworth Natural History (1910), R Lydekker wrote of the "hunting leopard" or "chita" (old spelling of cheetah) in which he distinguished it from the "normal" cheetah: "The hunting leopard of South Africa has been stated to differ from the Indian animal in its stouter build, thicker tail, and denser and more woolly fur, the longest hairs occurring on the neck, ears, and tail. This woolly hunting leopard was regarded by its describer as a distinct species (Cynaelurus lanius), but it is, at most, only a local race, of which the proper name is C. jubatus guttatus."


Economic importance

Lying cheetah.

Cheetah fur was formerly regarded as a status symbol. Today, cheetahs have a growing economic importance for ecotourism and they are also found in zoos. Because cheetahs are far less aggressive than other big cats, kittens are sometimes sold as pets. This is an illegal trade, because international conventions forbid private ownership of wild animals or species threatened with extinction.

Cheetahs were formerly, and are sometimes still hunted because many farmers believe that they eat livestock. When the species came under threat, numerous campaigns were launched to try to educate farmers and encourage them to conserve cheetahs. Recent evidence has shown that if cheetahs can avoid it they will not attack and eat livestock, preferring their wild prey. However, they have no problem with including farmland as part of their territory, leading to conflict.

Ancient Egyptians often kept them as pets. They were also tamed and trained for hunting. Cheetahs would be taken to hunting fields in low-sided carts or by horseback, hooded and blind folded, and kept on leashes while dogs flushed out their prey. When the prey was near enough, the cheetahs would be released and their blind-folds removed. This tradition was passed on to the ancient Persians and carried to India. This practice continued into the twentieth century by Indian princes. Cheetahs continued to be associated with royalty and elegance, their use as pets spreading just as their hunting skills were. Other such princes and kings kept them as pets, including Gengis Khan and Charlemagne, who boasted of having kept cheetahs within their palace grounds. As recently as the 1930's the Emperor of Abyssinia, Haile Selassie, was often photographed leading a cheetah by a leash.


Conservation status

Cheetah cubs have a high mortality rate due to genetic factors and predation by carnivores in competition with the cheetah, such as the lion and hyena. Some biologists now believe that they are too inbred to flourish as a species.

Cheetahs are included on the IUCN list: vulnerable species (African subspecies threatened, Asiatic subspecies in critical situation) as well as on the US ESA: threatened species - Appendix I of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). Approximately 12,400 cheetahs remain in the wild in 25 African countries; Namibia has the most, with about 2,500. Another 100-200 are thought to remain in Iran. There have been successful breeding programs, including the use of in-vitro fertilization, in zoos around the world.



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