The cheetah is the fastest predator in the world, so what do we know about it?
Fact number one.
The speed of a cheetah can range from one hundred to one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour. But it doesn’t keep this pace for a long distance — just about six hundred meters long. When running at high speed, the cheetah takes one hundred and fifty breaths per minute.
Fact number two.
The black lines on the cheetah’s muzzle help to attenuate the effects of the bright sun and see into the far distance. It is often claimed that tear marks, or tear strips, help to reduce sun glare and increase contrast by reducing the amount of light that enters the cheetah’s eyes during the day.
Fact number three.
While running, the cheetah’s head is well stabilized due to the spine’s structure. This reduces vibrations and maintains high visual clarity.
Fact number four.
Cheetahs can’t growl. When they are unhappy or aggressive, they hiss loudly. A cheetah cannot growl because it has only one hyoid bone. However, it can purr where some other cats can’t! The cheetah makes more chirping noises, such as when it calls for its cubs.
Fact number five.
A running cheetah is in the air in more than fifty percent of cases. When the cheetah reaches its maximum speed, its leaping length reaches seven meters, and it spends more than half of its time in the air.
Fact number six.
On average, one out of every two cheetah attacks is successful. This is much better than, for example, in the tiger, as the tiger only succeeds in one out of ten attacks. Cheetahs can live without food for about five or six days.
Fact number seven.
Cheetahs have a special respiratory system that allows them to hold prey long enough with teeth and still breathe normally. Unlike other big cats (leopards, lions, tigers), cheetahs never eat carrion.
Fact number eight.
The cheetah is perhaps the most sociable and getting along well with a person representative of wild cats. However, in captivity they very bad breeding. Anyway, cheetahs, like all other wild animals are better off living in the wild. For last years, the population of cheetahs has declined sharply and continues to decline.
Fact number nine.
Cheetahs have too blunt claws for climbing trees. Cheetah claws are actually semi-retractable and assist in acceleration. Naturally, over time, they become dull because of wear. Claw “Thumb” or dew claw (right bottom) is located behind the other four and above. This claw is used for taking prey during the chase.
Fact number ten.
In the wild, cheetahs live an average of about twenty years, in captivity — up to thirty-five years. This makes them different from lions, which, on the contrary, live less in captivity than in nature
December fourth is International Cheetah Day. The holiday was established by the Cheetah Protection Fund for drawing the attention of the general public to the problem of the disappearance of this species. These representatives of felines are most widely distributed in Africa but are also found in Asia. There are about five to seven thousand of them in the world, animals are on the verge of extinction.
