Talk:Cheetah

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This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

	Cheetah has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones Date Process Result May 23, 2016 Good article nominee Listed April 30, 2020 Peer review Reviewed A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on May 31, 2016. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that every cheetah (pictured) has a unique pattern of spots on its coat? Current status: Good article

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Section sizes Section size for Cheetah (33 sections) Section name Byte count Prose size (words) Header Total Header Total (Top) 5,910 5,910 439 439 Etymology 5,814 5,814 138 138 Taxonomy 4,307 12,624 198 273 Subspecies 8,317 8,317 75 75 Phylogeny and evolution 13,829 13,829 471 471 Genetics 5,303 10,217 215 511 King cheetah 4,914 4,914 296 296 Characteristics 8,474 26,261 556 1,366 Internal anatomy 9,878 9,878 523 523 Speed and acceleration 7,909 7,909 287 287 Distribution and habitat 2,493 13,919 230 837 Historical range 8,078 8,078 476 476 Present distribution 3,348 3,348 131 131 Ecology and behaviour 1,526 46,728 172 3,144 Social organisation 5,044 5,044 403 403 Home ranges and territories 2,176 2,176 305 305 Communication 9,878 9,878 279 279 Diet and hunting 14,689 14,689 1,013 1,013 Reproduction and life cycle 10,367 10,367 792 792 Competition 3,048 3,048 180 180 Threats 3,811 3,811 218 218 Conservation 825 17,331 49 707 In Africa 6,340 6,340 280 280 In Asia 10,166 10,166 378 378 Interaction with humans 28 22,810 0 1,195 Taming 10,129 10,129 593 593 In captivity 8,271 8,271 358 358 Attacks on humans 1,723 1,723 83 83 In culture 2,659 2,659 161 161 See also 41 41 0 0 References 29 29 0 0 Further reading 529 529 0 0 External links 1,177 1,177 0 0 Total 181,030 181,030 9,299 9,299

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Cheetah's tail: Counterbalance or rudder?

Contrary to what is often said, cheetah tails most likely do not function as a counterbalance.

Anatomical studies of cheetah carcasses have found that cheetah tails represent only ~2% of their body mass.

(For a tail to serve as an effective counterweight in an animal, it must represent at least 10% of its body mass).

Furthermore, the distance between the centre of mass of the tail and its base represents ~25% of its total length.

In other words, the centre of mass of the tail is close to its base and not in the middle or near the tip.

Apart from the fact that the main muscles that move the tail are also around the base of the tail, the tail itself is mostly made up of bone, tendons, ligaments, skin and hair (the latter two represent about 25% of the total mass of the tail).

Therefore, the cheetah's tail does not provide significant inertia to serve as a counterbalance.

What has been found is that the tail can generate greater aerodynamic drag.

The thick hair on the cheetah's tail increases its effective area by 40% without having to increase its muscle and bone mass, which would make the tail too heavy and compromise the animal's athletic ability.

A 24 cm cylinder with a diameter of 30 mm at one end and 10 mm at the other was covered with a 29 mm layer of cheetah tail fur.

Its effective diameter was as if it had a diameter of 60 mm, assuming a cylinder with equal diameters at both ends.

The tail reduces the force load on the front limbs and increases it on the hind limbs.

This means that the cheetah's tail serves more as a rudder to control the animal's direction (and a rudder with a larger area improves manoeuvrability).

In addition, it has been found that cheetah tails perform rotational movements that form an imaginary cone shape in the air.

These rotational movements of the tail could reach angular velocities of 17–22 rads/s (162–210 revolutions per minute) and angles of 90°.

This could help stabilise the animal when running at high speeds.

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/15677

https://doi.org/10.1242/bio.018457 LeandroPucha (talk) 01:13, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Typo

Line 28 of Characteristics section: "capable of overtake" should be "capable of overtaking". I would edit but I don't have access. Lightheat (talk) 21:02, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Lightheat:  Done, thank you.—Odysseus1479 21:28, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

My pleasure :) Lightheat (talk) 08:09, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]