Description: The fur of the Cheetah is golden tan with black spots. Cubs have blue-gray fur on their heads and backs until they are about three months old.

Range/Habitat: Cheetahs live in grasslands and open woodlands in Africa.

Adaptations: The cheetah can reach speeds of 60 or perhaps even 70 miles per hour over short distances. They can make sudden sharp turns.

Courtship/Gestation/Birth: Female cheetahs usually bear 1 to 6 cubs in a littter after a pregnancy of 3 months.

Diet: Carnivore.

Remarks: Cheetahs usually live alone. But females are often seen with their cubs. Males occasionally travel in small groups of two or three animals. The cats communicate by marking tree trunks, bushes and termite mounds with their waste. Cheetahs do not roar as lions or tigers do. When alarmed, a cheetah may whine or growl. A cub makes chirping sounds to call its mother.
Prey is suffocated by the Cheetah by biting the throat and constricting the windpipe.
As many as 5000 cheetah skins may be traded annually. Habitat derstruction is the major cause of decline. Estimated wild population is 25,000.
Cheetahs have been used by people for hunting for thousands of years. In the 16th century, emperors of India used trained cheetahs to bring down antelopes.
Cheetahs do not have retractable claws like other cats.

Status: Endangered

Card by Henson Robinson Zoo Education Department.

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