The cheetah can accelerate from 0 to 56 mph in a mere 2 seconds.  Only one commercially available car can do that -- the 2002 Lingenfelter Twin Turbo Corvette ZO6.  With its long legs, delicately domed head, big lungs, and lithe, sloping body, the cheetah is built for bursts of speed.

As the world's fastest land animal, topping out around 70 mph, the cheetah does not require all of its speed to outrun gazelles and impalas, the small antelopes that supply most of its calories.  It's a matter of strategy.  The cheetah depends on surprise as well as speed to capture its prey off-balance, both literally and figuratively.  After spotting its prey from a high lookout, on a hill or a termite mound, the cheetah slowly stalks, then waits.  When it erupts from the cover of grass, it quickly overtakes its fleeing prey, reaches out a forepaw, and trips the animal or knocks it down. The cheetah then uses its jaws to suffocate the animal in a vise-like grip. It eats quickly, because other predators often try to steal its food.

Sometimes cheetahs fall prey to lions and hyenas, and eagles may carry off cubs. Infant mortality among cheetahs is extremely high.  The cheetah cannot defend itself as effectively as other large cats because it is light and has several canine features that make it more like a wolf than a lion or a tiger.  Its claws are long, flat, and non-retractile.  It cannot scratch or grab with them.  Instead, it relies on its claws for traction during quick turns at high speeds, another physiological compromise in favor of  speed and agility.

Of all the felids, only the cheetah is primarily diurnal.  The best times to see cheetahs hunting are early morning and late afternoon.  In Tanzania, they frequent the Seronera area of the Serengeti during the dry season, July to September.  During the rainy season, they favor the open grasslands of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, east of Barafu kopjes.  They resemble leopards because both have golden coats with black spots, but the cheetah is distinguished by its solid spots and a pair of black tear streaks that extend from the inside of its eyes to its upper lip.

Cheetah expert Tim Caro describes their organization as "teetering on the verge of sociality." Unlike female lions, which form prides with strong social bonds, female cheetahs live alone or with their dependent cubs.  When adolescents leave their mother at about age two, they live together temporarily.  Only male cheetahs form permanent coalitions, and these puzzle behavioral scientists because they do not exist to defend females, as groups of male lions do, and they do not hunt cooperatively. 

The fastest land animal  is also one of the most vulnerable due to its genetic makeup.  All living members of its species, Acinonyx jubatus, are as closely related as identical twins.  They may have descended from a very small group of survivors of a near-catastrophe about 10,000 years ago, when massive climatic changes swept the earth. 

Much older than the other big cats, the now-extinct cheetah Miracinonyx first appeared in the fossil record about 4 million years ago in what is now Texas, Nevada, and Wyoming.  The cheetah later growled and purred throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa - it does not roar - but now lives wild only in Africa.  As one writer said of this fleet and fragile animal, the cheetah embodies "the elusive grace of a declining wilderness."