Acinonyx jubatus is fast, but this speedster is equally fascinating when it stays still, surviving in the wild as part of a male coalition.
The Musketeer coalition, below, took down a surprisingly large animal. Probably just one cheetah alone could not do it. (Note: Predation scenes.)
Meanwhile, at the Smithsonian National Zoo, humans try their hand at coalition building:
Of course, there are no fences in the wild, but the following encounter between a coalition and a newcomer is termed “surprisingly amicable” in the YouTube channel note.
I don’t know — that’s one amazing death glare!
According to the channel note, observers know the newbie as Nomu and they speculate that he might eventually join the coalition.
That was in August 2022, and I saw no follow-up about it. Hope that everything went well for all of them!
More information:
- What is a cheetah coalition?
- A new Zambia coalition
- What happens when a coalition collapses? (Online PDF; doesn’t download; mild jargon alert)
For lagniappe:
I don’t know the life span of wild cheetahs, but it is likely that none of these furry gentlemen is around today.
But there they were, fifteen years ago, one evening in the prime of their lives, and a human was able to film those golden moments:
Feature image: Derek Keats, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Flight To Wonder 