Cheetah

The cheetah is also able to quickly change the direction of its run.
The kinetic energy carried by the body of a cheetah running at incredible speed helps it knock down animals larger and heavier than itself.
The cheetah's body is slender, with well-developed muscles and almost no fat deposits, making it aerodynamic. It has a small head, high-set eyes, and rounded ears.
In Africa, the cheetah is the weakest of the large predators. After an unsuccessful hunt, it needs up to half an hour to rest, and hyenas, leopards, and lions may steal its prey.
Unlike other felines, cheetahs hunt by chasing their prey rather than ambushing it. They approach their target to within about 10 meters, without hiding.
The cheetah makes jumps up to 6–8 m long, spending less than 0.5 seconds on each jump.
The cheetah's flexible spine allows it to run with its feet barely leaving the ground and to keep its head at a constant height.
The cheetah does not hide its prey for later, unlike, for example, the leopard, and in nature there are no known cases of it returning to it. Remains of its meal attract other predators.

Age

The African cheetah’s typical lifespan is from 10 to 15 years, with a maximum recorded lifespan of 20 years and 6 months; its theoretical lifespan ranges from 10 years and 3 months to 20 years and 6 months. The species reaches sexual maturity between 11 months and 2 weeks and 1 year and 7 months. A cub’s eyes open between 1 and 2 weeks of age, and it begins to walk between 2 weeks and 4 days and 4 weeks. During the embryonic stage, the embryo develops inside the mother during pregnancy. The cub is born blind and toothless, lives in a shelter with its mother, and this stage lasts from 1 day to 2 years. The adult stage begins at 2 years of age and lasts until 14 years of age, during which time the cheetah can run quickly and reproduce.

Phenotype

The African cheetah has short, smooth, yellow-brown fur with black spots covering its body for camouflage; the young have long fur on their back and neck to mask them from other predators, and the spots also cover the cub’s body for camouflage. The adult's long tail helps maintain balance during sharp turns, while the black stripes running from the eyes to the mouth reduce glare from the sun and aid in spotting prey. The species possesses long and powerful legs that allow it to reach speeds of up to 110 kilometers per hour; its claws are almost non-retractable and function like spikes for running.

Physiology

The African cheetah’s body height ranges from 17.8 centimeters to 4.5 meters; its body length varies from 1.8 to 2.2 meters. The species' mass is between 43.02 and 43.99 kilograms, while the embryo stage has a body mass of 1 to 200 grams. During the cub stage, the young have a body mass ranging from 250 grams to 25 kilograms and a body length of 25 centimeters to 1.1 meters. An adult individual's body mass is between 40 and 60 kilograms, and its body length is from 1.9 to 2.2 meters.

Habitat

The African cheetah inhabits elevations up to 1.8 kilometers above sea level and occupies biomes including very dry areas with infrequent rainfall, temperate steppes with abundant grass and few trees, and tropical savannas characterized by heat and uneven rainfall with plentiful grass and trees. The species is found in landscapes such as land, grasslands, steppes, grassy areas, scrubland, and tidal zones. The climate varies, encompassing very hot and nearly dry conditions with minimal rainfall, hot steppes with very hot, dry summers and abundant grass, very dry environments with rare rainfall, very hot and dry conditions with high daytime temperatures and cold nights, and winters with little precipitation but more rainfall in summer.

Shelter

The African cheetah is found in grasslands among grass; the species does not have a permanent or long-term shelter. It lacks a fixed den, and therefore has no permanent shelter. The cheetah uses locations for reproduction, rest, and protection from the sun.

Geography

The African cheetah occupies biogeographical regions of Afrotropics and Palearctics. The species is found in Somalian acacia-commiphora scrublands and woodlands, Southern acacia-commiphora scrublands and thickets, West Congo forest-savanna, Limpopo lowveld, and Zambezian mopane woodlands.

Feeding

The cheetah eats only meat, stalking prey during the day and catching up to it with a fast run, using a strategy of active hunting and a feeding method – constriction. The cheetah's diet includes gazelles, antelopes, impalas, hares, and rabbits, as well as large mammals such as oryxes, spiral-horned antelopes, water goats, dik-diks, gnu antelopes, hares, and aardvarks. The species’ daily food requirement is from 2 kg to 4 kg, and offspring feed on milk. In some cultures, the cheetah is consumed as food, but it is not considered halal or kosher.

Reproduction

The African cheetah is a terrestrial species that reproduces through live birth, with young born helpless on land and remaining with their mother for one and a half years; gestation lasts three months, and a litter has 2 to 6 cubs. The female brings forth offspring after approximately three months of pregnancy, and the number of offspring ranges from 3 to 6. Sexual reproduction is always accomplished through fertilization without generational changes. Maturity occurs between 2 and 3 years of age, and the interval between reproductions is from 1 to 2 years.