I didn’t know cheetahs meow I’ve always thought they roar my whole life has been a lie
Ok but the other one is purring so hard
If I ever don’t reblog this assume I’m dead
Fun fact: technically, because of its inability to roar and its ability to purr, the cheetah is not a ‘big cat’ (or Great Cat) – they are still classified as Lesser Cats.
Also you haven’t heard anything until you hear them cheep.
The opposite of albinism called melanism, a recessive trait where the skin and fur are all black.
nature & real talk
Holy shit that’s majestic.
Yes, the powers of Photoshop are indeed majestic
So far the closest thing we have to melanistic lions are the black-mained Asiatic lions
(Panthera leo persica), and it’s not known whether lions are even able to be melanistic!
The only melanistic big cats we know of are jaguars…
…and leopards.
We do, however, know of abundism in other big cats! What’s abundism you may ask? Well, it’s basically when places that normally have a lot of melanin end up producing an abundance of it. So an abundistic tiger looks like this:
And an abundistic cheetah looks like this:
And just for good measure, here’s an abundistic leopard:
This is true! The zoo where I volunteer (the illustrious Columbus Zoo & Aquarium) was one of the pioneers of this program.
Our zoo is known for raising cheetah cubs. Cheetahs have a terrible infant mortality rate and cubs are often rejected, so we get a lot of cubs to raise from all over the country (other zoos and sanctuaries, mostly).
The cubs are placed with a puppy friend when they are wee and small, so they grow up together like littermates. They play together, wrestle, and the dogs (yellow Labs) are so calm, friendly and well-socialized that the cheetahs take behavioral cues from them. When they meet new people, or go into new situations (which they often do, as ambassador animals for cheetah conservation), they check out if their dog friend is feeling chill – which he is – and then they know it’s okay for them to be chill, too.
Basically the dog is a service animal for them.
The cats need their dog friends less and less as they get older and more comfortable, but they still often hang out as grownups.
Our zoo does cheetah runs, where the cheetahs get to chase a lure and show off their speed. Often they’ll have one of the cheetahs run (we have like twelve cheetah), and then they’ll have one of the dogs do the run to show how much faster the cats are. People get a kick out of that. The dogs…let’s just say they try their best.
Yup, that’s the point you just stay still and let it do whatever the fuck it wants that doesn’t involved you getting eaten.
REALLY FUN FACT for big cats cheetahs are fucking docile as shit
my grandfather ran a cheetah sanctuary in south africa and he’d just lie with them and sleep among them and they’d rub against him and chirp at him they’re big fucking babies
Another Fun Fact: Cheetahs are incredibly nervous animals. One of the (many) reason’s they’re going extinct is that cheetahs are so sensitive and nervous, some of them are literally too nervous to breed. Others will breed, but stress themselves out so much, they’ll lose their cubs.
So zoos with breeding programs had to figure out how to make cheetahs comfortable enough to first of all, get laid and secondly – not spazz themselves into miscarrying.
So what’d they do? They gave the cheetah’s their very own Service Dogs!
The dogs make them feel safe, protected and secure!
wupacing 