Cheetah facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Cheetah Temporal range: late Pliocene to Recent
Conservation status
Vulnerable (IUCN 3.1)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Felidae
Subfamily:	Felinae
Genus:	Acinonyx
Binomial name
Acinonyx jubatus
The range of the cheetah

The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is a large wild cat. It lives mostly in Africa. Cheetahs are famous for being the fastest land animal on Earth! They can run super fast, up to 114 kilometers (about 71 miles) per hour. They can chase their food for about 270 meters. In the wild, cheetahs usually live for about 7 years.

What Does a Cheetah Look Like?

Cheetah in action

Cheetahs are medium-sized cats. They have long legs and thin, but strong, bodies. Their fur is covered in round, dark spots. They have a white belly. A special dark stripe looks like a tear running down both sides of their face.

Adult cheetahs weigh between 40 and 65 kg (90 to 140 pounds). They are about 112 to 135 cm (4 to 5 feet) long. Their long tail helps them keep balance when they run fast. They have a big chest and a narrow waist. Their back legs are very powerful.

Cheetahs have small heads and noses. Their large nostrils help them take in lots of oxygen when running. They have small, round ears. All these features help the cheetah be very sleek and fast. Cheetahs do not roar like lions. Instead, they make sounds like bird chirps. These chirps can be heard from a mile away! Cheetahs are one of the few big cats that can purr, just like a house cat.

Cheetahs have amazing eyesight. They have many nerve cells in the center of their eyes. This helps them see very clearly, especially when hunting.

How Do Cheetahs Behave?

A group of cheetahs in South Africa

Cheetahs are mostly active during the day. This is different from leopards, tigers, and lions, which hunt at night. Being active during the day helps people watch and study them better. Cheetahs hunt mostly in the early morning or late evening.

Cheetahs are very alert animals. They often look around from high places to check for danger. Even when they are resting, they take turns watching out.

The face of a cheetah

Cheetahs show certain behaviors when they fight, hunt, or defend themselves. Before a fast run, a cheetah will lower its head. It will look aggressive as it walks towards its target. This aggressive look stays on its face during the run.

To protect itself or its food, a cheetah will crouch low to the ground. It will snarl with its mouth wide open. Its eyes will stare ahead, and its ears will be folded back. It might also make moaning, hissing, and growling sounds. If it's very serious, it might hit the ground with its paws.

Where Do Cheetahs Live?

Cheetah in South Africa

Today, most cheetahs live in southern Africa. A few can still be found in Iran in Asia. In the past, they lived across northern India and Iran. They like to live in semi-deserts, savannas, and open grasslands. They avoid thick forests because they need open space to run fast and hunt.

Cheetahs are good at living in dry places. In the Kalahari desert, they can travel about 82 km (50 miles) between drinks of water. Sometimes, in India, cheetahs leave forests and go into cities or villages. This has happened more in recent years.

What Do Cheetahs Eat?

Hunting Cheetah

Cheetahs hunt during the day, usually in the early morning or late evening. They mostly eat mammals like gazelles, impala, young gnus, and hares. Male cheetahs are bigger and heavier, so they can hunt larger animals.

Cheetahs sneak close to their prey, usually within 30 meters (about 100 feet). Then, they start a fast chase. They catch their prey by tripping it during the chase. They use a strong claw on their front paw to knock the animal off balance. The chase is usually over in less than a minute. If the cheetah doesn't catch its prey quickly, it often gives up. This is because running at such high speeds uses a lot of energy. About half of their chases are successful. After running at full speed, a cheetah needs to rest for at least 15 minutes before running again.

Cheetah Brothers

After catching food, the cheetah takes it to a shady spot. It is very tired from the chase and rests next to the kill. It pants heavily for about 5 to 55 minutes. Groups of cheetahs eat peacefully. Cheetahs that were not part of the hunt will start eating right away. They can eat a lot of food.

Cheetahs must eat their catch quickly. If they don't, stronger predators like lions or hyenas might steal their food. Cheetahs usually won't fight larger animals over food. Getting injured would mean they couldn't hunt and would starve. Cheetahs usually do not eat the skin or bones of their prey.

In the past, people would tame cheetahs. They used them to help hunt other animals because cheetahs are such skilled hunters.

How Do Cheetahs Have Babies?

Cheetah cubs

Female cheetahs are pregnant for about three months. They usually give birth to 3 to 5 cubs. The mother takes care of her cubs for two years. During this time, she teaches them how to hunt and survive on their own. Young cubs are in danger from larger predators, especially lions, who often try to kill them.

In the wild, female cheetahs can live for 14 to 15 years. Males usually live up to 10 years.

How Do Cheetahs Talk to Each Other?

Cheetahs use special sounds to communicate:

• Chirping: This is a short, bird-like sound. Cheetahs chirp when they are excited, like when they are around food. Mothers also chirp to call their hidden or lost cubs. Adults might chirp as a greeting or during courtship.
• Churring: This is a loud, sharp sound that can last up to two seconds. It is used in similar situations as chirping.
• Purring: Like house cats, cheetahs purr when they are happy. It's also a way to greet each other or when they are licking one another.
• Angry Sounds: These include bleating, coughing, growling, hissing, meowing, and moaning. A bleat means they are in trouble, like when a predator steals their food. Growls, hisses, and moans often come with strong hits on the ground with their front paw. A meow usually means they are uncomfortable or annoyed.
• Other Sounds: Cheetahs can make a gurgling noise when they are close and friendly with each other. They might make a "nyam nyam" sound while eating. Mothers use a repeated "ihn ihn" to gather their cubs. They use a "prr prr" sound to guide them when traveling. A low alarm call warns cubs to stay still. Arguing cubs might make a "whirr" sound.

Why Are Cheetahs in Danger?

Cheetahs in Masai Mara

Cheetahs face several threats that put them in danger:

• Losing their habitat (the places they live).
• Not enough prey (food) to hunt.
• Illegal wildlife trade (people selling them illegally).
• Getting hit by cars on roads (roadkill).
• Catching diseases.

The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) lists the cheetah as a Vulnerable species. This means they are at risk of becoming endangered. They are losing their homes because of farms and factories. Cheetahs need large areas to live in. They also find it harder to live near humans compared to leopards. Human activity can disturb cheetahs when they are hunting and eating.

About 76% of the areas where cheetahs live are not protected. Farmers sometimes try to harm cheetahs to protect their livestock. However, cheetahs are not known to hunt farm animals. Hunters might also try to harm cheetahs because they see them as competition for game animals.

As of early 2023, there are fewer than 7,000 adult cheetahs left in the wild worldwide. Scientists believe there are less than 8,000 African cheetahs. There might be fewer than 50 Asian cheetahs left.

Cheetahs in Culture

Cheetahs have appeared in many artworks and stories.

• In 1764, the painter George Stubbs made a famous painting called Cheetah with Two Indian Attendants and a Stag. It showed a cheetah given as a gift to King George III.
• The 1896 painting The Caress by Fernand Khnopff shows a creature with a woman's head and a cheetah's body.
• Two cheetahs are shown on the coat of arms of the Free State in South Africa.
• Joy Adamson, who wrote Born Free, also wrote The Spotted Sphinx in 1969. This book was about her pet cheetah, Pippa.
• The book How It Was with Dooms tells the true story of a family raising an orphaned cheetah cub in Kenya. The 2005 movie Duma was based on this book.
• In the cartoon ThunderCats, there is a character named "Cheetara" who is a cheetah-like human.
• The comic book villain "The Cheetah" is a main enemy of Wonder Woman.
• The Bill Thomas Cheetah was an American racing car from the 1960s.
• In 1986, Frito-Lay introduced Chester Cheetah as the cartoon mascot for their snack food Cheetos.
• The first version of the Mac OS X computer system was called "Cheetah".

Cool Facts About Cheetahs

King cheetah. Note the distinctive coat pattern.

• The name "cheetah" comes from an Indian language and means 'painted' or 'adorned'.
• In the past, cheetahs were often called "hunting leopards" because people could train them to hunt.
• In 1777, Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber gave the cheetah its scientific name, Felis jubatus.
• The cheetah's closest relatives are the cougar (Puma concolor) and the jaguarundi (Herpailurus yagouaroundi).
• The king cheetah is a rare type of cheetah. It has cream-colored fur with large, blotchy spots and three dark stripes from its neck to its tail. This is due to a special gene change.
• Both male and female cheetahs are simply called 'cheetahs'.
• Cheetahs are not usually aggressive towards humans. They can be tamed easily. Historians say cheetahs were first tamed in Sumer, an ancient land. From there, the practice spread to Africa and India.

Images for kids

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  An illustration of the "woolly cheetah" from 1877

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  Cheetah portrait showing black "tear marks"

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  Close view of a cheetah. Notice its slender body, spotted coat, and long tail.

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  Cheetahs live in different places, like the grasslands of the Serengeti.

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  The Cheetah Conservation Fund's Field and Research Centre in Otjiwarongo, Namibia.

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  Jairam Ramesh at the Cheetah Outreach Centre in 2010.

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  A cheetah at the Saint Louis Zoo.

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  An ancient Egyptian drawing showing leashed cheetahs.

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  A sketch from 1844 showing cheetahs belonging to the Nawab of Awadh.

See also

In Spanish: Guepardo para niños