Children are sure to know about the cheetah:

Speed and grace of the cheetah

All children are sure to know about the cheetah. You would know that it’s the fastest land animal on Earth with the ability to run at speeds of 112 to 120 km/h (70 to 75 mph), accelerating from 0 to over 100 km/h (62mph) in just three seconds. The speed and grace of this member of the cat family have astonished humans and the sight of a cheetah running at full speed on television never fails to stop us in our tracks.

Though these kings of speed don’t live in Sri Lanka, we all know one by sight. But have you heard of the king cheetah? This is an extremely rare, regal and strikingly beautiful breed of cheetahs in Southern Africa. It’s believed that only about 30 of these animals survive today with only about 10 living in the wild.

Scientists think that about 10,000 -12,000 years ago, at least 99 percent of the world king cheetah population may have died within a short period, resulting in the population getting as low as one pregnant female. The main difference between the king cheetah and the normal spotted cheetah is in the coat pattern. The standard cheetah’s fur coat is usually yellow, tawny or golden in colour with a circular spotted pattern of small black markings, 0.75 to 1.5 inches in diameter, distributed fairly evenly across its body. The animal also displays the famous black ‘tear streaks’ down either cheek.

The king cheetah whose coat is pale cream to yellow has a distinctive patten of spots that run together to form several (usually three) thick lack stripes down its back, from the crest of its neck to the top of the tail.

In the king cheetah, spots coalesce into large blotches, and stripes develop on the animal’s back

In the king cheetah, spots coalesce into large blotches, and stripes develop on the animal’s back

They also sport dark patch-shaped markings (splotches), irregular in size and shape along their sides and flanks. Their underside is generally white. The tear tracks on the face are present in the king cheetah as well.

The reason for this difference was discovered recently to be a mutation of the gene which causes the spots in cheetahs. The same gene, it was found, produces the striking dark stripes on tabby cats and its mutation causes the stripes in cats and spots on cheetahs to become blotchy. King cheetahs are the result of two parents with the same recessive gene coming together (a reason for its rarity) and may occur side by side with normally coloured litter mates. (See boxed story)

However, they have the same genetic makeup as the common cheetah with little genetic diversification and problems inherent from inbreeding. The king cheetah, measuring 1.1 – 1.4 metres in length, 66-85 cm in height upto the shoulders and weighing 40 – 65kg, is slightly larger than the common cheetah.

Other rare colour morphs (gradual transformation) of the species include speckles, melanism, albinism and grey colouration. Most have been reported in Indian cheetahs, particularly in captive specimens kept for hunting. The king cheetah is found in Zimbabwe, Botswana and in the northern parts of South Africa’s Transvaal province. Their natural habitat comprise savannah and open areas such as plains, wooded areas and grasslands. While cheetahs prefer to chase their prey on the open plains, king cheetahs can be found in forests, stalking their meal which is mostly medium and large-sized mammals. Cheetahs hunt during the day, while king cheetahs hunt mostly at night. Since splotches are better camouflage for partially lit environments, the coats of the latter are better suited to shady forests.

Discovery

A king cheetah cub on a tree

A young king cheetah cub

The king cheetah (also known as Cooper’s cheetah) is believed to have originated from Central Africa, where they were used for hunting. It was first observed in what was then Southern Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe) in 1926.

The following year, the naturalist Reginald Innes Pocock declared it a separate sub-species, naming it Acinonyx jubatus rex (The common cheetah is classified as Acinonyx jubatus. Rex means king), but reversed this decision in 1939 due to lack of evidence for a separate sub-species.

In 1928, a newly dsicovered cheetah skin was found to be intermediate in pattern between the king cheetah and spotted cheetah and was considered to be a colour form of the spotted cheetah. Twenty-two such skins were found between 1926 and 1974.Since 1927, the king cheetah was reported five more times in the wild.Although strangely marked skins had been discovered in Africa, a live king cheetah was not photographed until 1974 in South Africa’s Kruger National Park.

Two cryptozoologists (those who search for and study animals whose existence has not been proven) photographed one during an expedition in 1975 and also managed to obtain stuffed specimens. The animal appeared larger than a spotted cheetah and its fur had a

 different texture. There was another wild sighting in 1986 - the first in seven years. By 1987, 38 specimens had been recorded, many from skins.It was consideresd as a separate species until May 1981 when two king cheetah cubs were born to two normal spotted cheetahs at the DeWildt Cheetah and Wildlife Centre in Pretoria, South Africa. The discovery of the recessive gene enabled scientists to breed several animals in captivity.More king cheetahs were later born at the Centre and some have even been exported to zoos in other parts of the world. This centre is responsible for the preservation and present population of the king cheetah.

Sometimes, this animal is referred to as a ‘DeWildt cheetah’ as a tribute to the Centre’s successful efforts to preserve and protect this animal from extinction. The majority of the existing king cheetahs in the world are descendents of the DeWildt cats.

IT

Cats’ stripes and spots tracked to a gene

The gene that produces the striking dark stripes on tabby cats is also responsible for the spots on cheetahs, a new study reports. And a mutation of this same gene causes the stripes in cats and spots on cheetahs to become blotchy. “Nobody had any idea what the genes were that were involved in these things,” said Stephen O’Brien, a geneticist now at St. Petersburg University in Russia and one of the researchers who led the study. “When the feline genome became available, we began to look for them.”

Dr. O’Brien and his colleagues published their discovery of the gene, known as Taqpep, in the journal Science. The findings are based on data analysed at the Hudson Alpha Institute for Biotechnology, in Alabama; the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, in Maryland; and Stanford University.

Cheetahs that have the Taqpep mutation (and therefore blotches and stripes) belong to a rare breed known as the king cheetah, found in South Africa. Tabbies with the mutation are more often found in Europe, Dr. O’Brien said. In the United States, the striped tabby is more common The researchers used DNA samples and tissue samples from feral cats in Northern California, along with small skin biopsies and blood samples from captive and wild South African and Namibian cheetahs.

The scientists also discovered a second gene, Edn3, that controls hair colour in the cats’ coat patterns. There is more work to be done in looking at other genes, and at other cats both domestic and wild, Dr. O’Brien said. “We’re still fishing around to really unravel the pathways involved in pattern forming and pigmentation,” he said.

- The New York Times