CHEETAH - Definition & Meaning for Kids

📖 Fun Facts About Cheetah

• • The cheetahs claws do not retract
• • Cheetahs use the "chase-trip-bite" hunting method, using one front paw to send their prey into a tumble and then killing with a strong squeeze of the neck..
• • The average cheetahs top speed is probably about 65mph, with some exceptional individuals reaching up to 70mph for no more than 3-4 seconds.
• • The cheetahs  extremely flexible spine is the main reason it is so much faster than other speedy animals. You will never see a horses spine curved as in the cheetah sprinting photo.
• • The cheetahs famous black "tear-streaks" may reduce glare like a football players eye-black.
• • The 4 to 5ft long cheetah has a 20ft stride - Amazing!
• • The cheetah is not considered a "big cat" because it is not a member of the genus panthera, and it lacks the physical ability to roar -Cheetah Facts!
• • Cheetahs are the fastest land animal in the world.. These cats are fast. They can typically reach speeds of up to 98 kilometers per hour (61 miles per hour), and can go from 0 to 60 Mph in just 3-seconds, which is faster than most super-cars. Their stride length becomes as long as 7m (23ft) at full pace, which means the cheetah spends more than half the time airborne. 1
• • Cheetahs don’t simply rely on their speed, they anticipate the escape tactics of different prey when hunting.. A team or researchers found that Cheetahs hunting tactics were specific to characteristics of their prey, and are far more sophisticated than thought. 2
• • The Cheetah tail helps them steer at high speed.. It may look large and cumbersome, but when on the chase, the tail of the Cheetah plays an important role. It actually helps to steer the cheetah as it runs, like a rudder on a boat.
• • Cheetahs tire quickly.. Due to the energy required to run at such speed, cheetahs can only maintain a chase for between 200 – 300m. If a hunt isn’t successful after 1 min, they usually stop to rest.
• • Fossils have revealed that Cheetahs date way, way back.. Carbon dating has estimated the age of some cheetah fossils as being between one and two million years old.
• • Cheetah can’t roar.. Unlike big cats like the lion, cheetahs are unable to roar. They are closer to your domestic house cat in that they can purr, both inhaling and exhaling.
• • Female adult cheetahs often live alone.. Known to be typically solitary animals, females raise their cubs alone for about a year before they leave. Male cheetahs sometimes will live in a small group of brothers from the same litter.
• • Cheetahs abandon around 10% of kills to larger predators.. In order to prevent losing their kill to another big and nasty carnivore (Lions, hyenas or even vultures), Cheetahs will move their prey to a secluded spot, and eat quickly. They will also hunt during the day when predators are generally asleep, and only end up abandoning a relatively small number of kills. 4
• • The cheetahs spots act as camouflage.. The cheetah can have between 2,000 and 3,000 spots, to help it blend into surroundings when hunting or hiding from predators.
• • There is no end to the cheetah mating season.. Cheetahs can mate any time of the year with gestation lasting just three months. A litter can range between 2 and 4 cubs.
• • Cheetah cubs have a very different coat to that of adults.. The cubs have a smoky colored, long, wooly coat called a mantle. It runs down their backs and acts as a form of camouflage. It helps to conceal the cubs and their mothers assist in this by constantly seeking places to ‘hide’ them to protect the cubs from predators until they are old enough to take care of themselves.
• • Cubs get moved around a lot.. Female cheetahs will move their cubs to different hiding places every few days. Once the cubs reach 5 or 6 weeks of age, they will follow their mothers and even start eating from their kills. By the time the cubs reach one year of age, they are hunting on their own. At 15 months, they will move away from their mother and either find a mate or sometimes live in a small group.
• • Cheetahs are not that thirsty…for water that is.. Having adapted for life in an environment where there is little water, cheetahs can go three to four days without a drop of it. That doesn’t mean that they don’t actually get any liquids at all. As it turns out, cheetahs are able to draw water from the animals they hunt, kill and eat.
• • Cheetahs start families early.. The male can reproduce at the age of one while females can begin rearing families at the age of two. The pairing is mostly random as cheetahs will mate with many different cheetahs during their lifetime.
• • Females end up raising their young alone.. Males do not participate in the rearing of their young however, females have been described as caring, affectionate and dedicated mothers.
• • Cheetah cubs have a shockingly high mortality rate.. One study in the 90’s the Serengeti found that 95% of cubs died before reaching adulthood. Many deaths were due to Lions, but also other predators and disease. 5
• • Cheetahs can do something no other cat can do.. The Cheetah is the only big cat that is capable of turning in mid-air while sprinting.
• • It’s a myth that cheetahs abandon hunts due to overheating when running.. Two Harvard scientists in 1973 set-up an artificial experiment in a laboratory, that that concluded a cheetah would be forced to stop running when their body temperature reached 40.5 degrees Celsius.
• • Cheetahs have been around for a very, very long time.. Sumerians trained cheetahs for hunting back in 3000 BC. The Indian (then Hindustan) ruler Emperor Akbar had 1,000 trained cheetahs he used for hunting while in power from 1556 to 1605. Even King Tut’s tomb (1400 BC) contained various cheetah artifacts. It was because of this that historians believed that the cheetah was a sacred animal to ancient Egyptians.
• • Cheetahs are slowly disappearing from the planet.. At the turn of the 20th century there were well over 100,000 cheetahs. Today the numbers are considerably less with roughly 7,000 in Africa and a few hundred in Iran. They have been driven out of their historic range by humans, and are now only found in Algeria, Angola, Northern Niger, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, and Mozambique. The species is already almost extinct in Asia, with fewer than 50 individuals remaining in one isolated pocket of Iran. 7
• • Cheetahs use their tails to guide/steer.
• • Cheetas are so closely related to each other that you can freely transplant organs between all members of their species without needing immunosuppression.
• • The fastest land mammal in the world!