Locomotion dynamics of hunting in wild cheetahs

A. M. Wilson (), J. C. Lowe, K. Roskilly, P. E. Hudson, K. A. Golabek and J. W. McNutt
Additional contact information
A. M. Wilson: Structure & Motion Laboratory, The Royal Veterinary College, University of London, Hatfield AL9 7TA, UK
J. C. Lowe: Structure & Motion Laboratory, The Royal Veterinary College, University of London, Hatfield AL9 7TA, UK
K. Roskilly: Structure & Motion Laboratory, The Royal Veterinary College, University of London, Hatfield AL9 7TA, UK
P. E. Hudson: Structure & Motion Laboratory, The Royal Veterinary College, University of London, Hatfield AL9 7TA, UK
K. A. Golabek: Botswana Predator Conservation Trust, Private Bag 13, Maun, Botswana
J. W. McNutt: Botswana Predator Conservation Trust, Private Bag 13, Maun, Botswana

Nature, 2013, vol. 498, issue 7453, 185-189

Abstract: Abstract Although the cheetah is recognised as the fastest land animal, little is known about other aspects of its notable athleticism, particularly when hunting in the wild. Here we describe and use a new tracking collar of our own design, containing a combination of Global Positioning System (GPS) and inertial measurement units, to capture the locomotor dynamics and outcome of 367 predominantly hunting runs of five wild cheetahs in Botswana. A remarkable top speed of 25.9 m s−1 (58 m.p.h. or 93 km h−1) was recorded, but most cheetah hunts involved only moderate speeds. We recorded some of the highest measured values for lateral and forward acceleration, deceleration and body-mass-specific power for any terrestrial mammal. To our knowledge, this is the first detailed locomotor information on the hunting dynamics of a large cursorial predator in its natural habitat.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12295 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:498:y:2013:i:7453:d:10.1038_nature12295

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature12295

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().