Distribution:  Once ranged throughout Africa and Middle East across to India.  Now primarily found in East and southern Africa, mainly outside protected areas.

Habitat:  Open habitat with some cover: broken woodland, savannah, semi-desert.  Adapted to arid climates and once penetrated deep into Sahara Desert.

Food:  Mostly prey smaller than itself: mainly small antelope but also young warthog, hares, young ostrich and game birds.  Male coalitions can bring down larger prey up to size of young giraffe.

Hunting Behavior:  Specialized diurnal hunter, using speed to hunt in early morning and late afternoon.  Uses extraordinary sight to locate prey and stalk as close as possible, preferably within 100 feet before beginning chase.  Due to lack of stamina, high-speed chase only lasts about 30 to 60 seconds or about 1,000 feet.  As cheetah closes in on prey, it slaps shoulder or rump to trip prey, or uses its sharp dewclaw to hook prey’s flank.  As victim falls to the ground, cheetah clamps its jaws on throat and strangles prey.  May take up to 30 minutes for cheetah to recover from a chase and it then eats rapidly, bolting down food before other predators or scavengers arrive and try to steal kill. 

Second only to wild dog in hunting success of big African predators.  Its specialized hunting technique is unique in the cat family and must be taught by mother to her offspring through demonstration and by bringing live prey to her cubs to practice on.

Social Behavior:  Diurnal, females solitary and non-territorial, males in coalitions or alone and territorial.  Cheetah’s social system of solitary females and social males is unique among cats.  Males, usually brothers, often form permanent coalitions of 2 to 5, primarily to hold and defend territories, and increase chances of mating and passing on genes.  Male coalitions are close, rarely separating, and are egalitarian with no dominant member.

Dispersion of prey and adequate cover determine size of female home ranges, and dispersion of females determines size of male territories.  Where prey is migratory, such in the Serengeti, female ranges can be over 1,000 sq miles and females will roam over vast distances, passing through several male territories during circuit of their ranges.  Female ranges usually overlap but they tend to avoid each other.  Females don’t defend ranges but will mark with urine or feces on elevated areas, especially when they are in estrous.

Only males are territorial and defend small core areas that overlap with several female ranges.  Coalitions have better chance than lone males to gain and hold territories.  The best territories are strategically located, where many females aggregate for purposes of feeding.  Males regularly patrol and mark their territories, spraying urine on prominent objects such as trees or urinating and defecating on elevated landmarks, such as termite mounds.  Nomadic or ‘floating’ males roam over much larger areas than territorial males, always on the move and cautious to avoid contact with territorial males who might kill them.

Cheetahs use places of elevation as scent posts and also as observation posts.  Scent is main communication channel among cheetahs and much time is spent searching for, smelling and depositing own individual scent that lasts for about 24 hours.  Males scent-mark to mark territories and warn intruders to stay out, and females urine-mark to advertise when in season.  Scent-marking reduces number of aggressive encounters between cheetahs by transferring information between them and preventing groups from stumbling on to each other.  Cheetahs will usually alter their direction of movement when they encounter fresh markings of other cheetahs.  Main contact calls are bird-like chirp and high-pitched yelp that is audible for over a mile.  One of the few big cats that purr like a domestic cat.

Due to its light body built for speed and its lack of strength, the cheetah avoids contact with other predators that can kill adults and cubs or steal kills.  Even baboons can kills cubs and steal kills away from adults.  Only serious fighting is between males over territory.

Reproduction:  After a gestation of 90 to 95 days, a litter of 1 to 8 cubs (average of 3 to 4) is born in bushy thickets, tall grass or rock cavities.  Cubs stay hidden for about 6 weeks and leave the den permanently at 8 weeks, following their mother and bedding down wherever they are.  For first 3 months, cubs have a light gray ‘mantle’ or mane that helps camouflage them and resembles a honey badger, a small fierce animal avoided by predators.  Cub mortality is high (only about 5% survive on Serengeti Plains), mainly from predation by lions and hyenas.  Cubs begin eating meat at 4 to 6 weeks, are weaned at 2 to 4 months and start hunting with mother at about 1 year. 

After mother leaves cubs at about 18 month, they remain in sibling group for another 6 months.  Females reach sexual maturity at 2 years when they leave sibling group; males usually remain together for life, reaching sexual maturity at 3 years.  Female offspring tend to stay in or near maternal home range while male offspring disperse further away and try to establish own territories.  A short-lived cat, they average 10 to 12 years in captivity, but can live up to 21 years.  In the wild they are lucky to make it to 8 years and live no more than 12 years.

Status:  Sparsely populated in Africa and less than 100 in Iran, with estimated total of 12,500 left in wild (less than 1,000 in Kenya).  Most endangered big cat in Africa due to loss of habitat and persecution by livestock farmers.  To avoid heavy presence of lions and hyenas in parks and reserves, cheetahs tend to live in areas outside protected areas, where they come into conflict with humans.  Least aggressive of big cats and not a threat to man.

Adaptations:  Fastest animal on land, cheetahs can accelerate from 0 to 50 mph in 3 seconds and reach speeds of 70 to 75 mph but tire quickly after 1,000 to 1,500 feet.  Key to a cheetah’s speed is length and speed of its stride.  Long legs and flexible spine increase stride length up to 25 feet and cheetahs can complete 4 strides per second, completely airborne during 2 points of each strides.  Long tail acts as a rudder for balance.  Semi-retractable claws and rough, ridged pads provide grip when running at high speeds.  Jaws are designed to clamp down on prey’s throat and suffocate. Large nasal passages allow cheetahs to pant through nose while holding vice-like grip on prey.  Extraordinary eyesight allows them to see over 3 ½ miles away in detail. 

One of the oldest cats in the world (up to 4 million years old), there were once multiple cheetah species found in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.  Due to population bottleneck about 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, all cheetahs today are as closely related as twins. 

Have been brought into captivity for 5,000 years and have longest association of hunting with man except for the domestic dog.  Thousands of cheetahs were used for hunting buck in India up until the 20th century.

 Head/Body Length:      3 ¾ - 4 ½ ft.                              Tail Length:    2 - 3 ft.
Shoulder Height:          2 ¼ - 3     ft.         
Weight:                             88 - 144 lbs. (male)   66 - 110 lbs. (female)

Why The Cheetah's Cheeks Are Stained

Long ago a wicked and lazy hunter was sitting under a tree.  He was thinking that he was too hot to be bothered with the arduous task of stalking prey through the bushes.  Below him in the clearing on the grassy plain there were fat gazelle grazing.  But this hunter couldn't be bothered, so lazy was he!  He gazed at the herd, wishing that he could have the meat without the work, when suddenly he noticed a movement off to the left of the buck.  It was a female cheetah seeking food.  Keeping downwind of the herd, she moved closer and closer to them.  She singled out a gazelle who had foolishly wandered away from the rest.  Suddenly she gathered her long legs under her and sprang forward.  With great speed she came upon the gazelle and brought it down.  Startled, the rest of the herd raced away as the cheetah quickly killed her prey.
The hunter watched as the cheetah dragged her prize to some shade on the edge of the clearing.  There three beautiful cheetah cubs were waiting for her.  The lazy hunter was filled with envy for the cubs and wished that he could have such a good hunter provide for him.  Imagine dining on delicious meat every day without having to do the actual hunting!  Then he had a wicked idea.  He decided that he would steal one of the cheetah cubs and train it to hunt for him.  He decided to wait until the mother cheetah went to the waterhole late in the afternoon to make his move.  He smiled to himself.

When the sun began to set, the cheetah left her cubs concealed in a bush and set off to the waterhole. Quickly the hunter grabbed his spear and trotted down to the bushes where the cubs were hidden.  There he found the three cubs, still too young to be frightened of him or to run away.  He first chose one, then decided upon another, and then changed his mind again.  Finally he stole them all, thinking to himself that three cheetahs would undoubtedly be better than one.
When their mother returned half-an-hour later and found her babies gone, she was broken-hearted.  The poor mother cheetah cried and cried until her tears made dark stains down her cheeks.  She wept all night and into the next day.  She cried so loudly that she was heard by an old man who came to see what the noise was all about.

Now this old man was wise and knew the ways of the animals.  When he discovered what the wicked hunter had done, he became very angry.  The lazy hunter was not only a thief, but he had broken the traditions of the tribe.  Everyone knew that a hunter must use only his own strength and skill.  Any other way of hunting was surely a dishonor.

The old man returned to the village and told the elders what had happened.  The villagers became angry. They found the lazy hunter and drove him away from the village.  The old man took the three cheetah cubs back to their grateful mother.  But the long weeping of the mother cheetah stained her face forever.  Today the cheetah wears the tearstains on its face as a reminder to the hunters that it is not honorable to hunt in any other way than that which is traditional.

First Cheetah on Sosian

As we were driving back to our house from the ranch in the afternoon, I spotted a familiar shape on top of a termite mound.  Even before I looked through the binoculars, I intuitively knew it was a cheetah.  As we drove near, he jumped down and walked a little way into a small clearing where he flopped down in the grass.  We drove within about 50 feet and watched him for well over an hour.  When we first approached, he crouched down in the grass with his ears back, but after we'd been there a few minutes, he relaxed and seemed to ignore us.  I was really amazed at how unconcerned he was with our presence as I expected any cheetahs in the area to be quite skittish around humans.  He rolled around on his back and flopped over several times to look around, but he wasn't really serious about hunting (his stomach was fairly full) and he eventually nodded off to sleep.  He was a beautiful young male of about two to three years and reminded me of the young males at Cheetah Outreach that we helped raise. 

More Cheetah Sightings

We occasionally see the young male cheetah who seems to use the area around our house as part of his territory.  Early in the morning on Christmas Eve, Mike interrupted him hunting impala in dense fog on the drive from our house.  He was stalking between two separate groups of impala that were totally unaware of him.  Such a shame that Mike broke up his hunt as he had a good chance in the fog to catch one. 

One morning in February, I saw a mother cheetah with three cubs, probably about eight months old, at our water pump at 9:00.  They spent some time in the shade of a nearby tree, then the mother went off on her own as though she was going hunting.  I rushed out to the rocky viewpoint south of our house and scanned the valley for her.  Suddenly, through the binoculars, I saw her very anxious face staring at me.  I left after a short time as she was very nervous lying in the shade of a boscia tree right below me and I didn't want my presence to drive her out into the already hot sun.  I never saw the cheetahs after that and assume they left the area as there were so many lions around.

Cheetah Kill

In early September, Mike and I were talking about how long it had been since we had seen a cheetah on Sosian, and wondering where they all were.  The area around our house is good country for cheetahs: open areas with broken bush for cover, and a lot of impala and dikdik.  I know they are around but you just don't see them that often.  

A few days later, on an early Sunday morning, I went outside to feed the birds.  As I was putting posho on the rocks, I scanned the area below the house as usual.  I thought I saw something on the edge of the grassy vlei below our house, in the dried yellow grass, about 15 metres from our spring and water pump.  It wasn't moving, so was probably a snag or bush.  I decided to go fetch my binoculars and have a quick look anyway.  To my utter surprise, it was a female cheetah and her two small cubs.  She was in classic cheetah pose, lying flat on the ground with her head raised, surveying her surroundings.  The two cubs were sitting up behind her.  It was their white undersides that I had seen in the sun.  It was just lucky that they had been sitting up when I looked down; if they had been lying down with their mother, I would probably have missed them.  The cubs eventually lay down beside their mother to sun themselves in the cool, windy morning.  I guessed that the cubs were about four or five months old, though it was hard to tell from so far away.

We continued to monitor them all morning but Mike finally had to leave for the ranch.  As he drove down the road, the female sat up and looked in that direction, then flopped back down again.  I thought I'd quickly water the flower pots in front of the house as she seemed to be settled in for a while.  I wasn't gone more than five minutes and of course, they left then.  I spent a lot of time looking but couldn't find them.   Very irritating!  I didn't think they had gone far as there was a big breeding herd of impala not more than 50 metres from where they had been lying and the impala weren't aware of them at all; in fact, over half of them were lying down in the grass.  I figured the cheetahs had found some shade under a nearby bush and would stay there all day. 

I got up from my nap around 3:00 and went out on the verandah to see if the impala were still there.  Unlike the morning, my timing was perfect!  The impala were really spread out as they moved through the area where the cheetahs had been, toward the open vlei.  Suddenly I saw a flash of something flying through an open area in the bush, and the impala started snorting and running.  The male impala, who was leading the herd, was already far out in the grassy vlei and came charging back with the females behind him.  They grouped together and snorted, all looking in the same direction.  Eventually the male moved over toward the road that goes by the Old Boma we can see from our house and was giving loud alarm snorts.  He seemed to be charging something; he would charge and then quickly retreat over and over. There were two female impalas with him.  We knew the target of the impalas' distress had to be the cheetahs but couldn't see them.  We went up on the platform but still couldn't see anything except the impalas who were extremely agitated, so we drove over there. 

As we slowly drove up the road by the Old Boma, there were only two impala still there: two very upset females standing inside the boma, snorting like crazy.  We followed the direction they were staring in (not even noticing us) and there were the cheetahs in the shade of a bush eating a young impala (I'm sure one of the impalas in the boma was the mother and that's why she was still there).  The mother cheetah had made the kill when I had gone out on the verandah and the impala were all scattered.  I'm sure that's what I saw flying through the bush--if I had blinked I would have missed it.  We watched them for half an hour, beautiful cheetahs with blood-covered faces.  The cubs were bigger than they looked from our verandah and had to be at least five months old.  They still had some fluff on their backs and sides.  The mother had big round eyes that reminded me of Pippa, the cheetah that Joy Adamson released to the wild in Meru NP in the 1960s.  After watching them for about 30 minutes, we left them to finish their meal.  We thought they might come down to the spring later in the evening to drink but never saw them again.  The next morning Mike found only a few scraps of impala skin left.  The hyenas must have taken the rest of the carcass off during the night.