A cheetah’s tail is a very important part of it’s body not only does it help with balance while the cheetah is climbing a tree or through a mountain range it also acts as a weapon the tail is long and powerful and can knock a potential predator to the ground giving the cheetah enough time to escape an attack by running at it’s full speed of up to 75 miles an hour.
The tail also works as a propeller as the cheetah is the fastest animal on land and able to reach speeds of seventy-five miles an hour in fewer than five seconds.
Along with the cheetah’s slender, muscular body and strong hind legs, the tail is in proper proportion with the rest of its body giving it a graceful appearance.
The cheetah is one of the smaller wild cats weighting between eighty and one hundred and fifty pounds measuring five to six feet in length.
Which makes a cheetah a prime source of prey for the larger cats and animals that roam the grasslands, savannah and mountain ranges where the cheetah makes its habitat?
Luckily the cheetah is a social animal and the males will live with either its male siblings or a few other “lone” male cheetahs.
The females are social but not as social as the males they will share their home range with sister siblings and their juveniles or the females born to them. Although they hunt alone and do not share their prey with others except their young.
Being a social cat helps lengthen it’s lifespan to twelve to fourteen years in the wild. They have “back-up” if help is needed from others in their group.
Cheetahs do not adapt well to new environments, which makes it difficult for scientists to capture and breed them in captivity. Often a cheetah will die within a few weeks of being captured.
The cheetah was built for speed with the help of its long, strong, propelling tail. It can out run an animal, but can only run for short distances at a time and then must rest before it can even eat its prey.
Using its tail for balance a cheetah will often drag its prey up in to a tree with it and wait to eat it.
Here is an interesting article: what does a cheetah eat
