Mammals · plate 8 of 60
Cheetah
Acinonyx jubatus
Fastest thing on land. Needs a lie-down after.
Only 2.6% of people are Cheetahs. (estimated)
If you're a Cheetah
You are fast in everything: thinking, deciding, leaving. You do things in bursts and then you need to stop, properly, in the shade, for a while. You are gentler than your speed suggests; cheetahs chirp and purr rather than roar. You get along with a small, chosen few and you lose more than your share of wins to louder animals.
A cheetah's chase typically lasts well under a minute, and afterward the cat stands panting for a long while before it can even start eating.
The Cheetah as a spirit animal
You are quick, efficient, and surprisingly soft. You commit completely for a short time and then you have nothing left, and you have learned to plan for that. You are loyal to a few people, often the ones you grew up with. The flaw is that you do the hard work and then get pushed off the result by somebody bigger and slower. You should keep the first bite.
Grounded in how the species actually lives; nothing borrowed from anyone's tradition. Why we put it that way.
How to get along with a Cheetah
Do
- Keep plans short and sharp; cheetahs do one burst at a time.
- Protect the recovery time; the rest after the sprint is not optional.
- Stand up for their wins; cheetahs lose kills to lions and hyenas and have stopped complaining.
Don't
- Don't ask for stamina; this is a sprinter, by body design.
- Don't mistake quiet for cold; a chirp is the whole emotional range and it is sincere.
When it goes wrong: A stressed cheetah leaves, fast, rather than fight; let it go and be where it expects you when it comes back.
The Cheetah in a relationship
You love quickly and look after people steadily. Cheetah mothers raise their cubs alone for about a year and a half, moving them from hiding place to hiding place, while brothers stay together for life. You are made for a small, chosen few, and you will run yourself flat for them.
Field notes
Every animal is placed on six personality traits derived from how the species lives. Your answers are placed on the same six, and the closest animal wins. How the scoring works
- Sociability
- 4
- Boldness
- 4
- Energy
- 9
- Curiosity
- 4
- Devotion
- 7
- Roaming
- 7
- Cheetahs cannot roar; they chirp, which sounds like a bird, and purr like a house cat.
- A cheetah's claws only partly retract, so they work like running spikes, and the long tail acts as a rudder in a turn.
- Male cheetahs often live in lifelong coalitions, usually brothers, while females hunt and raise cubs alone.
Cheetahs in literature
- Chitranjan, Akbar's cheetah — Akbarnama, Abu'l-Fazl (1596)
- The hunting leopards of Kublai Khan — The Travels of Marco Polo, Marco Polo (1300)
- The Leopard — Aesop's Fables (The Fox and the Leopard), Aesop (550 BCE)
Characters from public-domain works. Company, not a verdict.
Closest personalities
The animals whose profiles sit nearest to the Cheetah's. If you got Cheetah, one of these was probably your runner-up.
Other mammals
WolfRed FoxBrown BearPolar BearLionTigerLeopardElephantGiraffeHippopotamusGorillaOrangutanSlothKoalaKangarooPlatypusOtterBeaverBadgerRaccoonHedgehogBatCamelDolphinSperm Whale
Among the 60
Friedrich Specht (1839–1909), Brehm's Life of Animals, Alfred Brehm (1895). Public domain, viacommons.wikimedia.org.All credits
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