Scientific classification

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Felidae
Subfamily:Felinae
Genus: Acinonyx
Species: Acinonyx jubatus

Quick Facts

Height: 30 inches at the shoulder
Length: 45 - 55 inches  plus the tail which can double the over all length
Weight: 110 to 140 pounds
Lifespan: 10 to 20 years
Habitat: Open plains of the African Savanna
Diet: Smaller herbivores including impala, gazelle and antelope
Gestation: 90 to 95 days
Threats and Predators: changing habitat, birds of prey, hyenas, lions, leopards and humans.

Did You Know?

Cheetahs are found in these African heartlands: Kazungula, Limpopo, Maasai Steppe, Zambezi
The name cheetah comes from an Indian word meaning "spotted one."
Young cheetah cubs have long gray-blue coats and black underbellies that rapidly lighten and become spotted.
Ancient civilizations trained cheetahs for hunting as depicted in their art and written records.
Cheetahs were so popular that Akbar the Great of India was said to have kept a stable of about 1,000.
A cheetah can reach speeds of over 70 miles per hour for very short bursts of less than 30 seconds, but they can reach their top speed in only a few strides.

Biology:

The cheetah's chest is deep and its waist is narrow. The coarse, short fur of the cheetah is tan with round black spots, affording it some camouflage while hunting. There are no spots on its white underside, but the tail has spots, which merge to form four to six dark rings at the end. The tail usually ends in a bushy white tuft. The cheetah has a small head with high-set eyes. Black "tear marks" run from the corner of its eyes down the sides of the nose to its mouth to keep sunlight out of its eyes and to aid in hunting and seeing long distances.

Some cheetahs also have a rare fur pattern mutation: cheetahs with larger, blotchy, merged spots are known as 'king cheetahs'. It was once thought to be a separate subspecies, but it is merely a mutation of the African cheetah. The 'king cheetah' has only been seen in the wild a handful of times, but it has been bred in captivity.  There are four species of cats that have semi-retractable claws - Fishing Cat, Flat-headed Cat, Iriomote Cat and Cheetahs.  This type of claw offers the cat extra grip in its high speed pursuits giving it the ability to change direction by spinning in mid-air, a feat unmatched by any other big cat species.

In addition to their body shape, claws and tail, cheetahs have large nostrils that maximize oxygen intake, an enlarged hear and lungs that burn oxygen efficiently and allow the cheetah's respiratory rate to increase from 60 to 150 breaths per minute during a high-speed pursuit.

Reproduction and social life

The social life of male and female cheetahs are vastly different.  Males will band together in small cooperative groups of 2 - 4 individuals and stake out a territory for hunting and habitation.  Females on the other hand will live a more solitary existences and have hatitation territory that crosses over several male territories.  For this reason females often mate with more than one male and will often have litters of cubs that have different sires.
 
Females give birth to up to nine cubs after a gestation period of ninety to ninety-eight days, although the average litter size is three to five. Cubs weigh from 150 grams (5.3 oz) to 300 grams (11 oz) at birth. Unlike some other cats, the cheetah is born with its characteristic spots. Cubs are also born with a downy underlying fur on their necks, called a mantle, extending to mid-back. This gives them a mane or Mohawk-type appearance; this fur is shed as the cheetah grows older. This mane gives a cheetah cub the appearance of the ratel, to scare away potential aggressors.  Cubs leave their mother between thirteen and twenty months after birth.

Interspecific predatory relationships

Cheetahs are designed for speed at the expense of both power and the ability to climb trees, thus, they cannot defend themselves against most of Africa's other predator species. They typically will surrender a kill immediately to even a single hyena, rather than risk any injury, as anything that slows them down is essentially life threatening. The cheetah's death rate is very high during the early weeks of its life; up to 90% of cheetah cubs are killed during this time by lions, leopards, hyenas, wild dogs and even birds of prey. Cheetah cubs often hide in thick brush for safety. Mother cheetahs will defend their young and are at times successful in driving predators away from their cubs, but whenever possible the mother will move her cubs away from danger rather than risk a fight to the death.  

A cheetah has a 50% chance of losing its kills to other predators. Cheetahs avoid competition by hunting at different times of the day and by eating immediately after the kill. Due to the reduction in habitat in Africa, Cheetahs in recent years have faced greater pressure from other native African predators as available range declines.

Endangered status:

The cheetah is a vulnerable species.  Out of all the big cats, it is the least able to adapt to new environments.  It has always proved difficult to breed in captivity, although recently a few zoos have managed to succeed at this.  Once widely hunted for its fur, the cheetah now suffers more from the loss of both habitat and prey.  

Today, fewer than 15,000 cheetah are known to exist in the wild.  Cheetahs do not seem to have the ability to adapt to the rapidly changing ecological system in Africa and the conversion of their preferred habitat to farmland and unless this issue is resolved the species may not be able to survive much longer in the wild.