Masai Mara Animals - A guide for a Photographic Safari in the Masai Mara

The fastest of all terrestrial animals, reaching top speeds of 110 km/h at full sprint, the Cheetah is one of the most amazing animals to be found in the Masai Mara National Reserve. Probably no other land animal can match the cheetah's elegant and slender movements, nor its svelte and muscular body, which resembles that of a fashion top-model.

A solitary animal as most other big cats (with the exception of lions), cheetahs are however quite atypical if compared to other big cats. In first place, they hunt by speed rather than by stealth or pack tactics. Second, they can purr as they inhale, but cannot roar (while lions, tigers, leopards, and jaguars can). Moreover, unlike the rest of the cats, they do not have retractile claws.

The cheetah's body is slim yet muscular, aerodynamically designed. Every single feature perfectly favours high speed: it has a deep chest, narrow waist, small head, short muzzle, high-placed eyes, large nostrils for large oxygen intake, and small round ears. The fur of the cheetah is yellow with round black spots which help to camouflage it and black tear lines on the sides of the muzzle. The adult animal weighs from 40 to 65 kg (90 to 140 lb). Its total body length is from 112 to 135 cm (45 in to 55 in), while the tail can measure up to 84 cm (33 in).

While it is often mistaken for a leopard, the cheetah does have distinguishing features, such as the long tear-drop shaped lines on each side of its nose that run from the corner of its eyes to its mouth. The body frame of a cheetah is also very different from that of the leopard, most notably so in its thinner and extra long tail. The cheetah's coat is tan, or buff colored, with black spots measuring from ¾ to 1 ¼ inches across. There are no spots on its white belly, and the tail has spots which merge to form four to six dark rings at the end. The cheetah's tail usually ends in a bushy white tuft. Male cheetahs are slightly larger than females and have a slightly bigger head, but it is difficult to tell males and females apart by appearance alone.

The cheetah is a vulnerable species. Out of all the big cats, it is the least able to adapt to new environments. They have always proved difficult to breed in captivity, but recently a few zoos have been successful. Once widely shot for its fur, the cheetah now suffers more from the loss of both habitat and prey. The cheetah is considered the most primitive of all cats, and until recently was thought to have evolved approximately 18 million years ago, although new research puts the last common ancestor of all 37 existing species of feline more recently, at 11 million years.

The cheetah's paws have only semi-retractable claws, the only of its type amongst the species of cat, and offer the cat extra grip in its high-speed pursuits. It should be noted that the ligament structure of the cheetah's claws is the same as those of other cats, it simply lacks the sheath of skin and fur present in other varieties, and therefore the claws are always visible. With the exception of the dewclaw, the claw itself is also much shorter and straighter than other cats.

Cheetahs eat mostly mammals under 40 kg (90 lb), in particular Thomson's gazelles, its favourite prey, and impala. Wildebeest calves are hunted when cheetahs hunt together. While the other big cats mainly hunt by night, the cheetah is a diurnal hunter. It hunts usually either early in the morning or later in the night when it is not so hot, but there is still enough light - cheetahs hunt by vision rather than by scent. Prey is stalked to within ten to thirty meters (30-100 ft), then chased. Using their tails to maintain balance, cheetahs can make sharp turns if needed. The chase is usually over in less than a minute and if the cheetah fails to make a quick catch, it will often give up rather than waste energy. Another reason a cheetah may give up is because running at such high speeds puts a great deal of strain on the cheetah's body. The temperature within the cheetah reaches such high temperatures that it would be deadly to continue, this is why cheetahs are often seen resting even after they have caught their prey. Roughly half of the chases are successful. The cheetah kills its prey by tripping it during the chase, then biting it on the underside of the throat to suffocate it, for the cheetah is not strong enough to break the necks of the gazelles it mainly hunts. Then the cheetah proceeds to devour its catch as quickly as possible, for it is unable to defend itself against lions and hyenas, their most important natural enemies.

Cheetah acquires sexual maturity in 20 to 24 months. Mating season is throughout the year. Females give birth to one to five kittens¹ after a gestation of ninety to ninety-five days. The kittens weigh from 150 to 300 g (5 to 10 oz.) at birth. Unlike some other cats, cheetahs are born with their characteristic spots. Cheetah kittens are also born with a downy underlying fur on their necks, extending to mid-back. This gives them a mane or mohawk type appearance, this fur is shed as the cheetahs grow older. Death-rate is very high during the early weeks and up to 90% of the kittens are killed during this time by lions, hyenas or even by eagles. They leave their mother between thirteen and twenty months after birth. The cheetah can live over twenty years, but their life is often short for they lose their speed due to old age. Unlike other felines, the adult females do not have true territories and seem to avoid each other, though some mother/daughter pairs have been known to continue for small periods of time. Males sometimes form small groups, especially when they come from the same litter. Usually these groups consist of two or three brothers. Coalitions of many male cheetahs are much more successful at winning and keeping territories than the ones who live alone. Life span is up to 12 years in wild, much longer in captivity.

Cheetahs are found in the wild only in Africa, but in the past their range extended into northern India and the Iranian plateau, where they were domesticated by aristocrats and used to hunt antelopes in much the same way as is still done with members of the greyhound family. Aside from an estimated 200 cheetahs living in Iran (Khorasan Province), the distribution of cheetahs is now limited to Africa.

Cheetah cubs have a high mortality rate due to genetic factors and predation by carnivores in competition with the cheetah, such as the lion and hyena. Some biologists now believe that they are too inbred to flourish as a species. Cheetahs are included on the IUCN list: vulnerable species (African subspecies threatened, Asiatic subspecies in critical situation) as well as on the US ESA: threatened species - Appendix I of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). Approximately 12,400 cheetahs remain in the wild in 25 African countries; Namibia has the most, with about 2,500.