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Cheetah

Acinonyx jubatus

Description:

The cheetah's chest is deep and its waist is narrow. The coarse, short fur of the cheetah is tan with round black spots measuring from 2 to 3 cm (0.79 to 1.2 in) across, 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" running from the corner of its eyes down the sides of the nose to its mouth keep sunlight out of its eyes and aid in hunting and seeing long distances. Although it can reach high speeds, its body cannot stand long distance running, because it is more suited to short bursts of speed. The adult cheetah weighs from 35 to 72 kg (77 to 160 lb). Its total head-and-body length is from 110 to 150 cm (43 to 59 in), while the tail can measure 60 to 84 cm (24 to 33 in) in length.[13][14][15] Cheetahs are 66 to 94 cm (26 to 37 in) tall at the shoulder. Males tend to be slightly larger than females and have slightly bigger heads, but there is not a great variation in cheetah sizes and it is difficult to tell males and females apart by appearance alone. Compared to a similarly sized leopard, the cheetah is generally shorter-bodied, but is longer tailed and taller (it averages about 90 cm (35 in) tall) and so it appears more streamlined.

Habitat:

The cheetah thrives in areas with vast expanses of land where prey is abundant. The cheetah likes to live in an open biotope, such as semidesert, prairie, and thick brush, though it can be found in a variety of habitats. In Namibia, for example, it lives in grasslands, savannahs, areas of dense vegetation, and mountainous terrain.

Notes:

Just awesome, I was 5 meters from her on foot

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9 Comments

KévinlePape
KévinlePape 11 years ago

@crsmejia,
LoL I see you don't know what is conservation :) The radio collar is to find her (or any animals in critically endangered) to be updated on its routes, if she is still alive, has small, etc.

crsmejia
crsmejia 11 years ago

Wow she is wearing a radio collar do you want to find it and keep it as a pet or something like that

Jolly Ibañez
Jolly Ibañez 11 years ago

What a magnificent animal. I hope we will be able to keep them from extinction.

Ashish Nimkar
Ashish Nimkar 11 years ago

@ room-1618...
Mind what to make comment you are making. This is not picture blog... Hope you learnt something from this fantastic spotting about Cheetah most endangered mammal on this Planet. Cheetah is from Big Cat family of predatory Mammals of Web of Life on this Planet which secured all lives. Already Indian Cheetah is extincted and only few African Cheetahs left and they need protection and watchful care so they are tagged (as seen in the picture) of GPS gadget to track their wandering in wild and protect them from Human and other threats which will take their lives.

room-1618
room-1618 11 years ago

your choking it pooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooor thing.

room-162
room-162 11 years ago

Why does the cheetah have a collar?

Ashish Nimkar
Ashish Nimkar 11 years ago

Cheetah are near to extinct mammal so their fate cost to we Humans in future... They are positioned at very high level in Web of Life of the earth....thanks for sharing this precious spotting on Project Noah...!!
Here some info on this link...
http://forces.si.edu/main/pdf/PreK-1-Web...

KévinlePape
KévinlePape 11 years ago

Yes, we used this because there was just a few cheetahs in this vast field and only the female was wearing a collar.

KarenL
KarenL 11 years ago

Great timing!
I see she is wearing a radio collar - are you using telemetry to track her?

KévinlePape
Spotted by
KévinlePape

Lephalale Local Municipality, Limpopo, South Africa

Spotted on May 5, 2011
Submitted on Apr 30, 2012

Spotted for Mission

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