News in Science

Study puts cheetahs, greyhounds to the test

In their stride Captive cheetahs have gone to the dogs, according to a study in which a racing greyhound has outrun the world's fastest mammal.

However, researcher Alan Wilson says the findings do not knock the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) off its perch as sprint king. Rather they suggest that after years of captivity, cheetahs may lose the motivation to run.

Wilson, from the Royal Veterinary College in London, says although cheetahs and greyhounds (Canis familiaris ) are similar in size and build, greyhounds are about 32 kilometres per hour slower. Cheetahs have been recorded in the wild running at 104 kilometres per hour.

The results appear in the journal Journal of Experimental Biology.

"Cheetahs and greyhounds are known to use a rotary gallop and physically they are remarkably similar, yet there is this bewitching difference in maximum speed of almost a factor of two," says Wilson.

To track the differences Wilson and colleagues buried force-measuring plates in the ground, set up high-speed cameras filming at 1000 frames per second and recorded the animals chasing a chicken lure.

Wilson says nine cheetahs from the ZSL Whipsnade Zoo in the suburbs of London and the Ann van Dyk Cheetah Centre in South Africa were used in the study. Their performance was compared with the performance of six greyhounds.

The results show the trained greyhounds galloped faster than the captive cheetahs, with a top speed of 68 kilometres per hour compared with the cheetah's 64 kilometres per hour.

Wilson says although there was "surprisingly" little difference between the two animals' stride patterns, they were able to see characteristics that would allow the cheetah to easily outpace the greyhound.

Taking it all in its stride

Critically the cheetah can take more steps (stride rate) and has a longer stride, he says.

While the greyhounds maintained a constant stride rate around 3.5 strides per second, the cheetah effectively moved through gears, starting at 2.4 strides per second to 3.2 strides per second at their top speed.

Wilson, who is currently recording cheetah speeds in the wild for another study, says he believes cats in the wild may be able to reach four strides per second, allowing them to reach speeds that outstrip cars.

The study is not the first time, cheetahs and greyhounds have gone head to head.

In 1937, cheetahs imported from Kenya and trained by an Australian woman, Ruby Hendersen, were pitted against greyhounds at London's Harringay Stadium. The cheetahs easily won, though at times lost interest in the event.

Wilson says he is not surprised by the poor performance of the captive cheetahs as they have been born in captivity and never had to chase food for survival.

"If you took a bloke out of a sports bar and put them in the Olympics they wouldn't perform at that top level either," he says.