Have you ever heard about the unique creature Asiatic cheetah? You will be surprised to know that one of the most famous cat in the feline family, the Asiatic cheetah, may be found in Africa as well as in various Iranian provinces.
Let’s know in this interesting article about the habitat and lifestyle of Asiatic cheetahs and their facts.
Introduction:
Iran desert is home to a cheetah subspecies known as the Asiatic cheetah. It’s called the Persian or Iranian cheetah. More than 100,000 cheetahs lived on the continents of Africa and Asia a century ago. There are presently fewer than a few hundred of these individuals remaining on the globe. This species is supposed to have originated in India, Arabia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Only a few Asiatic cheetahs remain in Iranian and Pakistani reserves. There are currently less than 100 wild cats left, according to current estimates.
Species name: Acinonyx jubalus venaticus
Criteria for conservation: Critically Endangered
Species: None
Name And Its Meaning Of Asiatic Cheetah:
The word “Asian” means that someone is from Asia. The word for cheetah in Sanskrit is citrakayah (“Citra” means displaying different patterns, and “kaya” means body).
Critically Endangered
Asiatic cheetah is one of the species most in danger of going extinct on Earth. This cat is tan and has black spots all over it. It weighs 143 pounds. Asian cheetahs look almost the same as their better-known African cousins. But the two aren’t the same. There are some differences between Asian and African cheetahs. Also, this has caused some species to look different from others. Most likely, the Asian cheetah will run faster than its African cousin. Even so, in 2009, it was said that the African Cheetah and the Asiatic Cheetah had the same genes. Nonetheless, it has been discovered that the genes of the two species differ. Activists for the environment have been jailed for being spies, and many of their projects have been shut down because of politics and war.
The Asiatic Cheetah: Interesting Facts
- They are exclusive to the deserts of Iran.
- In Africa, cheetahs have smaller heads.
- A cheetah’s legs are short.
- In Africa, the cheetah’s neck is much stronger
History
Most people believe that the divergence between Asian and African cheetahs occurred between 32,000 and 67,000 years ago. A recent study indicates that the separation occurred approximately 5,000 years ago. Cheetahs were formerly domesticated and trained to hunt.
Characteristics Of Asiatic Cheetah
A buff or light fawn color covers the chest, muzzle, rump, eyes, and inner legs of an Asiatic cheetah. The nose’s sides and front are lighter than the rest. The cat’s body, legs, and paws are covered with black spots. The spots on its head and nape, on the other hand, are in lines. A black stripe runs along the tip of the tail. It has a shorter mane and coat than the African subspecies. In Asia, cheetahs are 112 to 135 cm tall and 66 to 84 cm long. It’s only that there’s no evidence to back up this claim. 34 to 54 kg is the range for this item’s weight (75–119 lbs). Men’s and women’s body measurements are slightly different.
Physical Appearance
Maximum length of an Asiatic cheetah is 4.5 feet, and its tail is around 3.5 feet long (from head to body). Cheetahs in Africa have larger skulls. A black spot is visible on the tan fur of a cat. From the corner of their eye, you may draw a line to the corners of their lips and nose.
Small black marks are placed in stripes on the head and scruff but irregularly dispersed on the body, paws, legs, and tail. Black stripes are also present at the tail end of the Asiatic cheetahs.
Size
This cheetah is more petite and more slender than its African counterpart. There is a considerably shorter long neck. Numerous individuals believe that their tiny legs make them speedier than their African ancestors. Cheetahs in Asia can grow to a height of 53 inches and have tails as long as 33 inches
The skin of the Asiatic Cheetah
Asiatic cheetahs have loose fur on their bodies, especially under their bellies and on the backs of their necks. They are buff to light fawn colored and have pale yellow skin.
Speed of Asiatic Cheetah
Both the Asian cheetah and the African cheetah are fast. There is no proof for the claim. In the savannahs where they live, Asiatic cheetahs have a luxury that only African cheetahs care about: they can go all out, which they can’t do.
Population
Less than 100 Asiatic cheetahs still live in the wild in Iran, where most of them still live.
Diet
Medium-sized species such as goitered gazelles, wild goats, cape hares, sheep, and chinkara make up the majority of the Asiatic cheetah’s diet. Asiatic cheetahs face greater difficulties finding food than their African cousins since their habitat is less varied.
Prey & Hunting (Diet) of Asiatic Cheetah
Aside from gazelles, Asiatic Cheetahs also eat wild goats, pigs, and sheep.
Asiatic Cheetah habitat (Where They Live)
Cheetahs in Asia have always lived in open places like deserts and plains. Five national parks and sanctuaries are home to most of the cats that are still alive:
- National Park of Touran
- Wildlife Reserve at Daranjir
- Nature Reserve of Naybandan
- Park Kavir
- Baghdad Protected Area
The male cheetah sets up his home range. Women don’t always go far, but sometimes they do.
Behavior And Ecology
The Asian cheetah is most active during the day, especially in the early morning and late evening. It doesn’t need to drink because it has learned to live in dry places, but it does eat prey and drink its urine to get enough water.
Reproduction
When they are about a year old, male cheetahs start to look for females to mate with. The females start to mate after two years. Because there aren’t as many sperm in males, there aren’t as many cheetahs being born.
It takes 90 to 100 days for a female cheetah to give birth. After a female gives birth to up to nine cubs, most of them die because they are eaten by other animals.
Mother cheetahs take care of their cubs until they are 1 to 1.5 years old and can take care of themselves. After the mother leaves, the young females will leave the mother. Most of the time, males stay together, or if there are only a few, another group of males may join them.
A few female cubs have been successfully raised by their mothers. In Iran, one to four cubs are born throughout the year. It was found in April 2003 that four babies still had their eyes closed in a den. We recorded a young cub in November 2004 with a camera trap, about 6 or 8 months of age. The availability of prey determines breeding success. In January 2008, a cub that had been abandoned by a sheepherder was taken into captivity.
Asiatic Cheetah Conservation Issues
Cheetahs in Asia eat gazelles, goats in the wild, and sheep. Cheetahs have been seen in rough mountains in Iran that look like those in the Sinai desert, though they are usually found in deserts.
They are in danger of going extinct because their habitats are being destroyed, their prey is dying out, and people are killing them.
This type of cheetah is one of the continent’s large cats.
Main Threats of Asiatic Cheetah
These cheetah were hurt by poaching, the loss of their prey, the change of their habitat, and the fast building of roads.
They are in danger of going extinct because there aren’t as many animals to eat as there used to be. This is true for most of Iran. The biggest threat to the Cheetah in its range is habitat loss, which is caused by overgrazing by livestock, desertification, drought, and the building of infrastructure in the desert. The Asiatic cheetah can also be killed by people who own livestock or on roads that are being built quickly.
Genetic research shows that even though cheetahs live in different places, their DNA is still very similar. Because of big drops in its population in the past, the cheetah may have become inbred. Around 10,000 years ago, this kind of bottleneck contributed to the first mass extinction that happened during the late Pleistocene.
Even though we don’t know what caused or led to population bottlenecks in the past or what effects they had, they can still affect how we protect cheetahs today. Asiatic cheetahs no longer live in the wild, and their range has been broken up. It is a worry that there isn’t much genetic diversity. The genes they once had may have been lost because of mutations and inbreeding. This could cause fewer babies to be born, more people to die, and more people to get sick or get parasites.
Threats Facing Cheetahs
Every day, it gets harder and harder to save Asiatic cheetahs, and they are almost extinct. Because of a loss of habitat, the number of Asiatic cheetahs is going down. In the 1900s, cheetahs used to live on only 288,000 square miles of land. In Iran, for example, the area with the most cheetahs is threatened by coal mines that are still being built to get at the land’s rich iron ores. No one cares about the animals.