IT TURNS out cheetahs aren鈥檛 that fast after all. It鈥檚 their acceleration that leaves everything else in the dust.
鈥淓veryone thinks cheetahs run at incredibly high top speeds, over 60 miles (97 kilometres) per hour, but these measurements were made with imprecise speedometers,鈥� says Alan Wilson of The Royal Veterinary College at the University of London. Plus, they were made on animals raised in captivity, unaccustomed to hunting.
In the quest for better data, Wilson designed solar-powered collars with GPS trackers, accelerometers, gyroscopes and other bits of kit to get a snapshot of life on the savannah, and fitted them on three females and two males. The fastest speed recorded was 93 kph, but the team was surprised to find their cheetahs tended to run at a more moderate 54 kph. What made them such good hunters was their ability to accelerate up to 3 metres per second and decelerate by 4 mps in a single stride (). The muscle power required to generate this acceleration was four times what Usain Bolt used for his 100-metre world record.
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鈥淐heetahs don鈥檛 run particularly quickly,鈥� says Wilson. 鈥淭heir success is more a matter of the manoeuvring and acceleration.鈥� The impala, gazelles and other animals they prey on are agile, and the final moments of a hunt are often played out with an intricate to-and-fro of footwork, rather than a flat-out race.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淯nder starter鈥檚 orders 鈥� cheetahs versus Usain Bolt鈥�
