The cheetah is the fastest land animal. In 2013, researchers in Botswana used a GPS tracking collar to record a top speed of 25.9 meters per second (58 miles per hour, or 93 kilometers per hour) for a wild cheetah (as of November 2026). The Botswana team built its own tracking collar with a GPS and motion sensors, and the collar recorded 367 hunting runs by five wild cheetahs, and the five collared cheetahs lived in Botswana's Okavango Delta. A cheetah can speed up from zero to 45 miles per hour (72 kilometers per hour) in just 2.5 seconds, according to the National Zoo, and the Botswana study recorded some of the highest values for forward and sideways acceleration, deceleration and power for any land mammal. Pound for pound, a cheetah's acceleration power is about four times that of Usain Bolt, the sprinter, in his world-record 100 meters, and most cheetah hunts in the Botswana study involved only moderate speeds. National Geographic's report calls their acceleration and athleticism, rather than top speed, the true key to hunting success.
An adult cheetah weighs 75 to 140 pounds (34 to 64 kilograms), according to the Smithsonian's National Zoo. According to the National Zoo, a cheetah's body is 44 to 56 inches (112 to 142 centimeters) long, with another 26 to 33 inches (66 to 84 centimeters) of tail. A cheetah stands about 30 inches (77 centimeters) tall at the shoulder, and males are slightly larger than females. A cheetah has large lungs and a large heart linked to a circulatory system with strong arteries, and a cheetah's spine is very flexible, which helps it take long strides. A cheetah has large nostrils that let it take in more air while it runs, and a cheetah's long tail helps it steer and balance during sharp turns. A cheetah's claws work like cleats and help it grip the ground when it runs, and at top speed a cheetah takes four strides every second, each one about 23 feet (7 meters) long.
Female cheetahs raise their cubs on their own and meet adult males only to breed, and a mother cheetah carries her cubs for 90 to 95 days before they are born. A cheetah mother gives birth to three to five cubs, and sometimes as many as eight in one litter, according to the San Diego Zoo, and cheetah cubs are born with all their spots, which makes them look much darker than adults. A mother cheetah moves her cubs often to keep them safe, and she makes a stuttering sound to call her cubs to follow her, and cheetah cubs are strong enough to follow their mother on a hunt by the time they are six weeks old. Cheetah cubs are weaned between 3 and 6 months of age and stay with their mother until they are 15 to 17 months old, and after the mother leaves, the young cheetahs form a sibling group that stays together for another six months.
Cheetahs naturally hunt in the morning and again at dusk, and prefer to rest when temperatures rise, and cheetahs hunt by sight. A cheetah has a black line, called a tear mark, from each eye down to its mouth. A cheetah usually creeps to within about 100 yards (91 meters) of a gazelle or other prey before it speeds up. Cheetahs eat small antelope such as springbok, impala and gazelles, and a cheetah in the wild does not need to drink much water, because it gets the moisture it needs from its prey, says the San Diego Zoo. About half of a cheetah's chases end with a catch, and a cheetah usually chases at only about half its top speed, says National Geographic Kids.
A coalition of male cheetahs is usually two to three littermates that stay together for life, hunting together and claiming a territory, and cheetahs hold a territory mark by leaving urine or droppings on prominent landmarks such as large trees and termite mounds. In Namibia, researchers fitted 164 male and female cheetahs with GPS collars, and adult males follow one of two plans: they roam over areas of up to 1,600 square kilometers, or they defend a small territory of about 380 square kilometers. Females in the study used home ranges of about 650 square kilometers, and the Serengeti Cheetah Project, a 30-year study, showed that cheetahs live at much lower densities than other large carnivores and need large, connected areas of habitat.
Camera traps identify cheetahs by their unique spots, but the huge number of pictures is very time-consuming to check. In a Namibia camera-trap study, a computer pattern tool lowered the count from 43 cheetahs to 40 after re-checking, which suggests human eyes may overcount. Researchers can also work out which cheetah left a dropping, what it ate and its health from DNA, hair and hormones in its scat.
Cheetah genomes are on average 95 percent homozygous, compared with 24 percent for the outbred domestic cat, which shows very little genetic variation in the species. Fourteen skin grafts between unrelated cheetahs were accepted in a 1985 study, a sign of extreme genetic uniformity, and cheetah genomes lost much of their immune gene variety, which would explain why unrelated cheetahs accept skin grafts from each other. Berkeley's evolution site notes that in a genome study of seven cheetahs (four from Namibia and three from Tanzania), cheetahs ranked last in almost every measure of genetic variation among species compared. A survey of 313 cheetahs across Namibia found little difference in genes among regions, so the Namibian cheetahs behave as one large population.
A 2026 genetic study found the extinct American cheetah was more closely related to the puma than to the cheetah, and its body looked like a cheetah's. Ancient DNA shows the northern American cheetah in the Yukon likely specialized in salmon and other fish, while southern ones were generalist predators.
The Asiatic cheetah was once found from Israel to India and as far north as the Caspian Sea, and records show gazelles were the main prey of Asiatic cheetahs across Asia, and urial, a mountain sheep, were also commonly reported in their history. As of November 2026, the Asiatic cheetah, a cheetah subspecies, survives only in Iran and is critically endangered. As of November 2026, a study of 2012 to 2024 camera-trap records identified 24 adult Asiatic cheetahs, with the remaining population in Iran's north likely under 30 animals. Camera traps in Iran found 17 Asiatic cheetahs between 2011 and 2016, and some moved up to 217 kilometers between known locations.
In 2016, a study estimated about 7,100 cheetahs worldwide, living in only 9 percent of their historical range (as of November 2026), and the 2016 study found 77 percent of the cheetah's current range lies outside protected areas. It said the cheetah's rapid range loss supported moving its IUCN Red List status up to Endangered, and over the past 50 years, cheetahs have disappeared from at least 13 countries, according to the National Zoo (as of November 2026). As of November 2026, cheetahs are found in 23 African countries and two Asian countries, according to Panthera. Cheetahs live on grasslands and open plains, and most cheetahs live in Africa. From 2020 to 2024 at least 31 cubs were born in Iran's northern cheetah population, and about 47 percent of monitored cubs survived beyond their first year.
Words to know
- collar: neck band
- scat: animal droppings
- genomes: all their genes
- homozygous: matching gene pairs
- generalist: eats many foods
