an autodidact meets a dilettante…

Sadly I don’t have so much time for writing these days, especially anything too strenuous or research-based, so I think I’ll do a series on organisms that have interested me over the years – or that I’ve just recently been fascinated by, for that matter.

Over at Not Exactly Rocket Science, there’s an article to whet the appetite as well as to apply a corrective to our thinking about everyone’s favourite wild cat, the cheetah (the name derives from Sanskrit, and cheetahs are found in Iran as well as Africa, and were probably more widespread in Asia in earlier times). Cheetahs are a vulnerable species, with about 10,000 of them currently existing in the wild. They’re described as a ‘charismatic species’, meaning that they’re utilised a lot as ‘ambassadors’ to draw attention to environmental and habitat issues for wildlife in general – along with elephants, humpback whales, giant pandas, California condors, grey wolves and such.

Cheetahs are, of course, built for speed in every way, though agility, with an incredible acceleration and deceleration rate, is also a key to their success. They can accelerate from zero to 40mph in just three strides – faster than the most sophisticated racing cars. Claims that their lightning runs leave them half-dead with heat exhaustion much of the time are, however, wildly exaggerated, as are the claims that they lose as much as half of their kills to lions and hyenas. In fact, cheetahs use up far more of their energy seeking out or tracking down potential kills than they do actually chasing them. A cheetah sprint takes up only 45 seconds a day on average – that’s less time than I spend on my high intensity interval training.

The key to maintaining cheetahs in the wild, then, is not to add to their greatest and most energy-sapping problem: finding food. Adding obstacles to their habitat, such as fences and enclosures, and depleting that habitat of their favourite food – gazelle, deer and impala, and the odd young zebra or springbok – would make life that bit more painful for them.

Speed, of course, is the cheetah’s big specialisation, what it’s adapted for. In fact over-specialisation is arguably its main problem, as it doesn’t have the bulk or strength to fight off other predatory mammals, all of which annoyingly compete for the same food. It’s light, with a weight that averages around 50 kgs, and its aerodynamically evolved head and body trade speed for strength, meaning that its jaws and teeth don’t have the size or force of other wild cats. It has a flattened ribcage but larger than usual heart and lungs for large intakes of air and fast pumping of blood. It also has a longer and larger tail than most cats, which it uses as a rudder for balance as it sets off on one of its twisting and turning runs. Its claws are only semi-retractable, unlike those of most cats (its genus name, Acinonyx, is Greek for ‘no-move claw’). This gives it extra grip while running. Males and females are the same size and hard to tell apart from distance.

Cheetahs don’t roar but they make up for it with a range of other noises, including purring like a – well, a cat, when experiencing domestic plenitude. They also hiss, spit, growl and even yowl when faced with danger. Cubs make a bird-like chirping sound, and the mother makes a similar sound when trying to locate her young. A sound called churring – no idea what that sounds like – is used on social and sexual occasions between adults. Male cheetahs form lifelong partnerships, often but not always with brothers, while females are solitary, bringing the kids up by themselves. They tend to mate with a variety of males – which hardly makes it mating, really. Interestingly, though the females are regular hunters, they’re not territorial, unlike the males, who practice group territoriality, each member of the gang contributing his scent.

Female cheetahs put their kids – or those that survive, as there’s a heavy infant mortality rate – through a tough survival training schedule before abandoning them at around 18 months. At around 2 years of age the females go their lonesome ways and the males hang together, sometimes combining with other blokes. It seems to work for them. In fact I think I read somewhere that males live longer on average than females, which wouldn’t surprise me. Fending for yourself all the time’s a deadly business, even when it’s all laid on in the big smoke, never mind having to chase your meals every day into old age. So spare a thought for the cheetahs, especially the girls, under-appreciated as always.