Cheetah

Animals in Africa

Cheetah 

The Cheetah is one of the oldest cat species on earth. Within thousands of years it has perfectly adapted to life on the African savannah. The Cheetah is the fastet animal on land and can reach a topspeed of 120 km/h. Its slender and athletic body, with big lungs and a big heart helps transporting oxygen through the system. Its long legs and flexible spine allows it to accelerate quickly.
Compared to all other cats, the cheetah cannot pull in its claws. With having its claws exposed constantly, they are not sharp enough for climbing in trees, instead the cheetahs claws secure grip while running fast, since they function as spikes. A cheetahs pray normally tries to flee by zigzagging fast, hoping to confuse this extraordinary predator, but besides its claws the cheetah has a long tail which helps him to keep the balance while chasing its prey at a high speed. 

A cheetah is mainly using its visual sense when hunting. Its eyes are big and really good and in addition to that black stripes in its face are functioning as sunglasses, as some scientists assume.

Grown cheetahs mostly lives solitary, but there are some cases where some male cheetahs of the same litter has formed packs. The brothers are hunting together and protecting each other from bigger predators.    

Cheetahs were once quite common in Africa and Asia, but poaching and the destruction of their natural habitats has caused a great reduction of the population. Biologists assume that there are only 7.000 wild cheetahs left which is why they today has been classified as endangered species. Conservation programmes, managed by the EAZA, shall counteract this decrease and preserve precious genes.