Another from the beautiful five is the cheetah! I had no idea how different the cheetah and the leopard are, so I learned a lot on this trip! I knew they were both big cats, but that was the extent of it so I hope this post enlightens you as well...The cheetah is one of my son's favorite animals because of it's speed - this I knew! We were lucky to see a cheetah on our first evening game drive in the Mara - it was not running, so we did not witness it's speed, but wow - it is a beautiful creature! All of these photos are from the same cheetah we saw that evening, it was just relaxing around dusk and let us hang out and enjoy it's beauty. We pulled up to it next to a termite mound, which they often use to climb up on for a different perspective over the grasses. She (I believe Kifa identified this one as female) likes to live and hunt alone - male cheetahs will sometimes live in coalitions with its brothers.
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You can clearly see the black dots on this cheetah - these dots differ from the rosettes on the leopard (I'll put a photo of them side by side below). I personally love the black lines coming down from the cheetah's eyes - this helps reflect the sun, similar to pro-athletes. Cheetahs will hunt alone and live a solitary life for the most part, females will raise the cubs, and sometimes males will band together in coalitions with brothers. They hunt during the day and sleep at night (which is different from other big cats).
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At one point, the cheetah moved away from the termite mound and you can see how camoflauged she is in the grasses! She allowed the vehicle to get closer and I was able to get some amazing photos - even a video to see her breathing/purring just like a house cat! We realized that she is pretty much completely hidden once she lies down in the tall grasses, so it's possible we drove by so many cheetahs (and other animals) on the savanna and didn't know it!
Another day, we spotted a cheetah in the grasses close to a herd of impala and other animals, like warthogs. This cheetah was clearly waiting to pounce on some prey, however it was hesitating! Then we saw a hyena creeping up around the other side of the vehicles. Our guide informed us that the cheetah could smell the hyena and knew that since the cheetah was alone, it might be able to kill the impala, but it would have a harder time fending off the hyena (and possibly hyenas) who would move in quickly to take over the fresh kill, so....the cheetah waited. We watched the hyena try to trick the cheetah by moving further away and lying under a tree, but the cheetah was not confident in the kill so it waited...and we got bored, so we moved on.
If you want to learn more about cheetahs, start here https://www.awf.org/wildlife-conservation/cheetah and, of course, dig deeper yourself - so many sources out there!
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