As predators chase down their prey on the open savanna it’s a race for survival. Lions and cheetahs are some of the most athletic animals on the planet but strength and speed aren’t everything. By precisely measuring the movements of predators and prey during hunts, researchers have now modeled the optimum strategy of both hunter and hunted, unpacking the subtle details of this evolutionary arms race.
During a typical run, a Cheetah can leap 25 feet on a single stride and can reach speed of 70 – 75 miles per hour. However research shows that the fastest animal on land rarely uses its top speed to capture prey. Instead, these animals use their ability to accelerate and rapid changes in direction when hunting.
The Cheetah is an ultra-fast predator co-evolved to catch a fast prey. The long spine and the small skull anatomy reflects a super-tuned evolutionary adaptation for speed. The Cheetah has non-retractable claws that enable anchoring on to the soil like crampons and the ratio of fast twitch muscle fibers to that of slow twitch in its hind legs are more than any other cat species.
In all comparisons of predator-prey pairs (cheetah-impala and lion-zebra) predators were more agile and athletic in every parameter measured.
Read the paper at the Nature Magazine.
3 Comments
Thank you for all of these!
Con mucho gusto!