Adult Cheetahs



Description: Cheetahs have a slight frame with long slender legs, with a deep, narrow chest and a small, delicate, domed head, high-set eyes and small, rather flattened ears. Adults claws are non-retractile. They have 10-12 teats. Coat: Tawny with small round black spots all over, the tail is paler to white towards the tip with broken black bands on the lower half. The face is conspicuously marked with black 'tear-stripes', running from the corner of the eyes. The underside is generally paler and the backs of the ears are mostly black with some tawny marks. The skin is black, whiskers white and the eyes orange brown.
Size: Head and body length 110-150cm, tail length 60-90cm, shoulder height 75-85cm.
Weight: 21-72kg, average 40-60kg, males are about 15% larger than females.
Senses: Cheetahs can reach speeds of up to 112km/h, usually running at about 60km/h. Can climb quite well. They have outstanging eyesight, very good hearing and their sense of smell is good.
Habitat: Savanna, arid bush and dry forest. Sometimes found at the edge of moist savannah or in highlands of up to 2000m.
Range: Female cheetahs live alone and with their cubs, they hold enormous ranges about 800sq km (300sq mi) and they follow the movements of Thomson's gazelle within this area. Males living in groups of 2-3 littermates, with only 30% of male groups including an unrelated male. Territorial males do not migrate through their home ranges as adult females do and when their is no food available they will leave their range for a short time and seek food elsewhere. Males have ranges of 37sq km (14sq mi) and defend them and mark them with urine although they may not occupy them all year round. Males that have no territory cover areas of about 777sq km (300sq mi) and rarely urine mark. Adult males without a territory are less relaxed then territorial males, they sit alert more often and exibt signs of physocological stress and are generally in poorer physical condition. All male cheetahs start out their independent life as non-territorial animals when they leave their mother's home range, some remain so all their lives and some precure a range early in life only to end their life as rangeless and nomadic animals. Nomadic male cheetahs are subject to aggression from all territorial males they meet. Coalitions of males are more likely to have ranges then single males. This is because brute force is needed to take and hold a range and numbers usually prevail. Fights over ranges are a major cause of mortality in cheetahs, males often die on the boarders or within a territory, either their own they are defending or one which they are trying to take. Males hold a territory for about 4-4.5 years, this figure seems to follow for coalitions and solitary males, though solitary males are much less likely to take a range in the first place. Males want territories so that they have easier access to females, males home ranges are always close to several female territories.
Adult Cheetah Typical cheetah and darker king cheetah morph


Distribution: Africa and the Middle East.
Status: Endangered throughout their range, principally as a result of habitat destruction, elimination of their antelope prey by humans, and direct persicution. Between 5,000 and 15,000 cheetahs may remain in Africa, and as few as 200 in Asia. Cheetahs must have descended from a small population a few thousand years ago as they have a low level of genetic variation. This could be a major problem if a serious disease affects the population. if one individual is suseptable then the entire population could be similarly suseptable as they have pretty much the same immune system as one another. This also means that cheetahs are less adaptable to their changing habitat, they are extreme specalists and if the habitat and prey they specilise in disappears so will the cheetahs. As cheetahs are quite unaggressive animals they can be tamed and used as hunting aids, in the past they have often been used thusly.
Daily Rhythm: Hunts by day, preferably at dawn and sundown. At night they sleep in burrows of other animals that they have taken, tree hollows, rock crevices or in thick bush, they have occasionally been known to sleep in trees. They hunt mostly in the morning and late afternoon.
Voice: Adults are mostly non-vocal, they growl, hiss and spit when angry and call to parteners with a loud bark. Young cheetahs are particularly vocal when playing, using a twittering note. They pur deeply when contented and use a twittering, rather bird-like, contact call. Females keep young away while they hunt with a low "ugh", and call them to the kill afterwards with a high chirp.
Enemies: Lions and hyenas are regular theives of cheetah kills, after a chase the cheetah is exhausted and cannot begin to eat right away, thus their prey is often taken from them before they have eaten a bite. Some lions, leopards and spotted hyenas have been known to kill and eat half grown or even adult cheetahs. When in danger they may climb trees to escape. They are not aggressive animals and avoid conflict.
Prey: Gazelles are their main prey, springbok, kob, blackbuck (where available), birds (up to ostrich size, usually bustards, guinea fowl and francolins), reptiles (including poisonous snakes), jackals, porcupines, dik-diks, oribis, common duiker, bushbuck, impala, addax, young warthogs, wildebeest calves and other hoofed mammals up to 40kg. Also takes animals as small as mice and hares. Will also eat some new grass and fruit. Carrion is never eaten in the wild.
Food and Feeding: A single adult may only kill every 2-5 days; females with cubs need to kill almost every day to ensure the survival of their cubs and themselves. They can eat about 14kg at one sitting and usually kill on a daily basis. Before they hunt they often sit on a termite mound or similar and gaze out, selecting prey carefully, stalking it to within 100 yards if possible, they then persue their prey at a gallop and run for 500 yards at about 80 kmph, each stride is up to 7m wide. They stalk prey using a concealed approach, followed by a full sprint starting from about 30-50m away. About half the sprints end in the prey being captured. An average chase will last between 20-60 seconds and will cover a disitance of 170m. Cheetahs cannot continue to chase after about 500m, which is why their hunts fail if their is a large initial gap between them and their quarry. On average they eat about 2kg a day in the wild. Two or more adult males have been known to takle larger animals than single males or females, taking animals the size of zebra or young buffalo, but this is rare. The prey is killed after being knocked to the ground and held in a throat grip for 5-10minuets. Birds are taken on the wing with a high jump, they swat them out of the air with their paw. Sometimes they leap on animals from a rock or tree, especially snakes which they prefer to take by surprise. Prey is dragged away to a concealed area to be consumed, it is then eaten on the spot. If the cheetah is disturbed they will not return to their prey. Little water is needed, when they are desperate for a drink they may drink the urine of prey and eat desert melons.
Grouping: Females are solitary, they often have their young with them and only meet with other adult cheetahs when they mate and in territorial disputes. Males may live alone or in groups with 2-3 individuals, usually they are brothers, with about 30% of groups containing an unrelated male. Grooming is often mutual amoung males and females with their young.
Breeding: The courtship is complex and drawn-out and after about 7-14 days the female comes into oestrus. Competition for mating rites amongst males can be high and males may kill one another, though combat is usually bloodless. They mate in sitting possition. Females give birth about once every 18 months and rapidly breed again if their cubs die. In sub-tropics breeding is restricted to spring, but is not restricted in the tropics. Cubs have an extremely high mortality rate, lions may kill cheetah cubs in their nest and in areas where this occurs 95% of cubs never reach independance.
Gestation: 69-95 days.
Litter Size: 1-6 cubs are born to each litter. (Usually 2-3, and sometimes with as many as 8 but this is not typical).
Young Description: The cubs are born with closed eyes, which they open at about 6-9 days. The cubs weigh about 250-300g at birth. At 12 days the males weight about 560g and females 500, at two months males weight 1300g, and females 1200g. By the time they are 1 year old they weigh 25-28kg. Cubs under three months old are blackish, with a mantle of long blue-grey hair on the back and neck.
Cheetah Cub


Nest: Before giving birth females select a lair, a rocky outcrop or marshy are with tall grass. The den is lined with feathers or fur generally.
Young Care: Females raise their young alone and nurse them in the lair, leaving them only to go hunting, after about 3 weeks they will start to venture out of the den a little. The cubs begin to accomapny their mothers from 8 weeks onwards, they are first introduced to solid food at about 4 weeks. Weaning occurs at three to six months, but cubs remain with their mothers until they are 13-20 months of age, and may remain in a family group for even longer sometimes. Cubs take a long time learning how to hunt well, during this time they usually remain with their litter mates. Cubs play vociferously with one and other and rehearse hunting skills in both harmless play and upon live prey that their mother fetches them, usually young gazelles. Cheetahs are not expert hunters even when they become independant and littermates remain together for about 6 months to help one another to capture enough food. The males littermates will remain together for the rest of their lives, females will break away and live solitary lives, only in the company of other cheetahs to mate and raise their young.

Cheetah cub