Fun fact: Cheetahs only attack prey that runs
jesus that is good to know.
Yup, that’s the point you just stay still and let it do whatever the fuck it wants that doesn’t involved you getting eaten.
REALLY FUN FACT for big cats cheetahs are fucking docile as shit
my grandfather ran a cheetah sanctuary in south africa and he’d just lie with them and sleep among them and they’d rub against him and chirp at him they’re big fucking babies
Another Fun Fact: Cheetahs are incredibly nervous animals. One of the (many) reason’s they’re going extinct is that cheetahs are so sensitive and nervous, some of them are literally too nervous to breed. Others will breed, but stress themselves out so much, they’ll lose their cubs. So zoos with breeding programs had to figure out how to make cheetahs comfortable enough to first of all, get laid and secondly - not spazz themselves into miscarrying. So what’d they do? They gave the cheetah’s their very own Service Dogs! The dogs make them feel safe, protected and secure!
AJHHHHFDDGHH SO PRECIOUS
this post just got so much better
THIS IS OFFICIALLY MY FAVOURITE POST
this is emmett and cullen they are best friends
This is the greatest thing I’ve seen all day.
Dogs are truly angels.
so THATS why these cheetah ft dogo pics exist
the anxiety cat
Also! Cheetahs are not in fact classified as big cats, they are simply very large lesser cats, due to the fact that they purr, meow, chirp, and cannot roar. Also many cheetahs have learned to recognize wildlife photographers are friends and not foes, so they will just come up to people and be friendly occasionally as pictured at the top of the chain. Some will even leave their Cubs with photographers to look after while they hunt. So. Yeah. Cheetahs are great
this works because cheetahs are actually fairly social animals, and they look to members of their group for context on how worried they should be about any given Situation. but since cheetahs are also nervous social animals, they can work each other into an anxiety spiral pretty easily over things like “being in an enclosed habitat” and “there’s a guy over there”.
so by introducing a dog as a member of the group, the cheetahs will now look to the dog for context clues on how worried they should be! and the dog Is Not Worried At All, Thanks, so the cheetahs think everything must be chill even if they were personally unsure about it, and they stop being so freaked out about literally everything.
Cheetah: oh god what’s going on how are we feeling weird spotless cheetah
Dog: :) fine, thanks
Cheetah: :) oh, okay
Wasn’t expecting this of all posts to be the first tumblr post I’ve ever seen crest 2mil notes, but I’ll take it
So the thing about cheetahs is it’s the males that are social. The females actually aren’t once the cubs are weaned, and having females have too much contact with each other will make it hard for them to get pregnant. They need their own, non-overlapping territories, with minimised female-female fenceline contact. Too much female-female contact stresses them out in general and makes it hard for them to conceive. The whole ‘I need to be chased to get in the mood’ thing is another thing that makes breeding hard for cheetahs, you need enough space so that that part of the breeding/courtship process can happen too.
Males on the other hand, form coalitions and are very social in their social group . Coalitions are usually 2-3 brothers that share food and resources and play together and it is adorable.
Cheetahs also usually have twins or more, and a cheetah that births a singleton will often abandon it. We don’t know why this happens but it does. But if you have another cheetah with cubs, you can sneak that cub in and she goes ‘oh another one, okay’ and the cub can be reared that way (the process of sneaking the cub in involves some scent transfer too iirc).
Monarto Safari Park in South Australia, which has one of the highest rates of cheetah breeding success, makes this work by giving the females their own territories but the males have their own shared space for that particular coalition. I very recommend going to check them out if you’re ever in the area, as it’s an amazing place doing a lot of great work in animal conservation and science and improving our understanding of what is needed to keep these animals happy and healthy. Also last time I was there I saw two rhinos playing tug of war with a stick and it was ADORABLE AS HECK.
