well the first thing that really strikes
me it’s just absolutely beautiful
footage where you can see in incredible
clarity what the cheetah is capable of
there’s a number of key elements here
one of the most important ones is this
spine so the spine of the cheetah is
proportionately the the longest and the
most flexible of any large cat species
and that’s really really important
because it enables the cheetah to
maximize the stride length keep by
bunching and coiling that a spine alone
it’s able to expand this incredible
stride rate which you see look at his
back
watch the back it’s down now watch when
he comes together watch when his hind
feet come up look at the back go up just
exactly like a coiled spring my golly if
a horse headed back like that a horse
could go 90 miles an hour look even
though I’ve watched cheetahs run for
over 30 years which is how long I’ve
worked with them in that super slow
motion I saw things that I’d never seen
before and I don’t think I really
realize although I knew it intuitively
that that head just never moves in the
eyes stay focused this is the animal
that hunts the neck stretched out the
head steady look how steady that head is
so it’s not immediately obvious but the
Cheetahs head as well has a whole suite
of adaptations you can see this if you
compare it to a fairly similarly sized
animal the African leopard but you can
see that the cheetah skull is is much
shorter and much lighter so the reason
for that is to help expand this nasal
cavity so and to reduce the weight so
this really enables that the cheetah to
have a very lightweight head which you
can see that marvelous moment in the
footage which is keeping it very fixed
on the preys you couldn’t do that with
an overweight and so having expanded
nasal cavities here actually helps while
she’s suffocating the prey to be able to
recover
there’s another really interesting thing
that has only just recently been
described about cheetah legs and that’s
the ratio of different types of muscle
fibers so we know now that the muscles
in the hind leg high in the high leg are
dominated by these these fast twitch
fibers so called fast twitch fibers and
a particular type of them that enables
very very explosive power
I think the footage is really
inspirational it’s the first time that
people including someone like me who’s
been really fortunate seen wild cheetahs
many many times including many hunts but
is able to see cheetahs in all their
terrific evolutionary splendor when you
see these cats running in this
incredible slow-motion you see the
perfection of everything that they are
this is the cat that is utter perfection
for what he does he does nothing but
wrong it’s all he can do he’s not built
to fight he’s not built to compete with
the other cats or even the other
predators this is the only thing he can
do the only thing the cat can do to
survive the perfect running machine for
a cat who hunts alone Wow
you
me it’s just absolutely beautiful
footage where you can see in incredible
clarity what the cheetah is capable of
there’s a number of key elements here
one of the most important ones is this
spine so the spine of the cheetah is
proportionately the the longest and the
most flexible of any large cat species
and that’s really really important
because it enables the cheetah to
maximize the stride length keep by
bunching and coiling that a spine alone
it’s able to expand this incredible
stride rate which you see look at his
back
watch the back it’s down now watch when
he comes together watch when his hind
feet come up look at the back go up just
exactly like a coiled spring my golly if
a horse headed back like that a horse
could go 90 miles an hour look even
though I’ve watched cheetahs run for
over 30 years which is how long I’ve
worked with them in that super slow
motion I saw things that I’d never seen
before and I don’t think I really
realize although I knew it intuitively
that that head just never moves in the
eyes stay focused this is the animal
that hunts the neck stretched out the
head steady look how steady that head is
so it’s not immediately obvious but the
Cheetahs head as well has a whole suite
of adaptations you can see this if you
compare it to a fairly similarly sized
animal the African leopard but you can
see that the cheetah skull is is much
shorter and much lighter so the reason
for that is to help expand this nasal
cavity so and to reduce the weight so
this really enables that the cheetah to
have a very lightweight head which you
can see that marvelous moment in the
footage which is keeping it very fixed
on the preys you couldn’t do that with
an overweight and so having expanded
nasal cavities here actually helps while
she’s suffocating the prey to be able to
recover
there’s another really interesting thing
that has only just recently been
described about cheetah legs and that’s
the ratio of different types of muscle
fibers so we know now that the muscles
in the hind leg high in the high leg are
dominated by these these fast twitch
fibers so called fast twitch fibers and
a particular type of them that enables
very very explosive power
I think the footage is really
inspirational it’s the first time that
people including someone like me who’s
been really fortunate seen wild cheetahs
many many times including many hunts but
is able to see cheetahs in all their
terrific evolutionary splendor when you
see these cats running in this
incredible slow-motion you see the
perfection of everything that they are
this is the cat that is utter perfection
for what he does he does nothing but
wrong it’s all he can do he’s not built
to fight he’s not built to compete with
the other cats or even the other
predators this is the only thing he can
do the only thing the cat can do to
survive the perfect running machine for
a cat who hunts alone Wow
you
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