Animal · Namibia, Botswana, South Africa
Cheetah
Acinonyx jubatus — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The cheetah is the fastest land animal on Earth, built for explosive speed rather than strength. It hunts alone on the open grasslands and savannas of Africa, chasing down antelope.
Picture credit: Charles J. Sharp (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Charles J. Sharp (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Thomas Fuhrmann (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the cheetah live?
Home: Open grasslands and savannas of Africa.
In the wild you find it in: Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, Mozambique, Ethiopia.
Conservation status from the IUCN: vulnerable.
The short profile
Fully grown it measures up to 1.5 m long, plus a 0.8 m tail. It weighs about 50 kilograms. On the menu: meat.
The story behind it
A cheetah can go from standing still to about 100 km/h in just a few seconds, faster than most sports cars, using its long tail like a rudder to steer sharply at full speed. But that top speed only lasts around 20 to 30 seconds before the cheetah overheats and must rest. Unlike lions or leopards, cheetahs cannot roar; instead they chirp, purr and even sound a bit like a bird. Cheetahs are also surprisingly gentle for a big cat and often lose their hard-won kills to lions or hyenas. Losing grassland habitat and low genetic diversity have made the species vulnerable to extinction.
Find it on the globe
Cheetah is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
How fast can a cheetah run?
A cheetah can reach speeds of around 100 km/h in short bursts, making it the fastest land animal alive. It can only hold that top speed for about 20 to 30 seconds before it must slow down to cool off.
Why can't cheetahs roar?
Cheetahs lack the special throat structure that big cats like lions use to roar, so instead they chirp, purr, and make bird-like sounds. This is one reason scientists classify cheetahs slightly differently from true big cats.
Are cheetahs endangered?
Cheetahs are classed as vulnerable, with fewer than about 7,000 left in the wild, mainly because their grassland habitat is shrinking and prey is harder to find. Their low genetic diversity also makes them more vulnerable to disease.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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