Doing what they do best …

As the fastest land animals in the world, cheetahs are known for running. Their entire bodies are built for speed – from their long legs and semi-retractable claws to their deep chests and small heads. Their tails are also built to help with speed; its long muscular tail works as a rudder, stabilizing and acting as a counter balance to the cat’s body weight. This allows sudden sharp turns during high speed chases – a very important skill when your prey is often an agile antelope.

Ro and Reh demonstrate a bit of their speed during a play session in the Zoo’s cheetah yard. You can see how their tails move depending on their strides; it keeps them on their feet while they play tag all over the yard.

*whew* Time for a rest.

Beautiful faces with amazing adaptations

From the tips of their noses to the tips of the tails, cheetahs are built for speed. Just take a look at their beautiful faces …

Cheetahs have high-set, large, forward-facing eyes over a short muzzle. This gives cheetahs binocular vision and excellent eyesight – cheetahs can see detail to a distance of 5 km, while humans with binoculars would have difficulty seeing the same detail.

With eyes like these, you can probably guess that cheetahs hunt primarily by sight, stalking within around 50 feet or so of their prey before springing into the chase.

Called a malar stripe, the black tear mark that runs beneath each eye helps to keep the glare of the sun out of the cheetah’s eyes (much like when football or baseball players put blacking under their eyes). This is an especially important adaptation as cheetahs largely are daytime hunters; unlike other cats, cheetahs do not have good night vision.

Cheetahs may rely most heavily on sight, but they also have excellent hearing. Their small, round ears can pick up the slightest sound and cheetahs can hear higher frequencies than humans. A black patch of soft fur behind each ear is believed to be an adaptation to resemble a pair of eyes.

Of course, modeling for all of those pictures is hard work.

In fact, just watching it exhausted the puppies, too!

Spring fever …

The cubs and the pups continue to enjoy our spring weather … when it’s here, anyway.

Staying up past their bedtime …

In early March, the cheetahs and the puppies traveled with Jack Hanna to appear on Late Night with David Letterman. Of course, they outshined everyone on stage!

Here’s a video of their big night … it’s a long clip, but the cheetahs and the puppies come on stage at minute 7:17.

Trying out for the Buckeyes …

Ro and Reh seem to be practicing to try out for the OSU Buckeyes football team … Look at the tackles!

Not to be outdone, Reese and Ruth show off their tackling skills as well!

Cheetah Claws!

Ro shows off his claws as he contemplates the best way to ambush Ruth. A cheetah’s claws are only semi-retractable; they never completely retract like other cats’ claws. The reason for this is so that cheetahs can take off quickly and keep traction on the ground as they are running at top-speed after their prey.

A close-up of the cheetah paw!

Recess!

As the weather offers up warmer days here and there, the cheetah boys and puppy girls get to go outside and play. The result? Lots of chasing, tumbling, and wrestling. Plus the occasional cheetah chirp-growl.

Actually, these kind of play sessions are an important part of growing up as a cheetah (or a puppy, for that matter). Play isn’t just all fun and games, even though the cubs and puppies are playing games and having fun. Playing helps the cheetahs practice stalking and chasing – skills that, in the wild, are vital to being a good hunter.

Playing also helps the cheetahs and the puppies bond, much like it would with human children (and adults)! Playing helps Ro, Reh, Reese, and Ruth learn about each other while they’re working off all of their energy – and as young cubs and puppies – they have a lot of that!

Peas in a pod …

In the wild, male cheetah cubs from the same litter, like Ro and Reh, will stay bonded together for years – possibly even for life. Ro and Reh are very bonded to each other – that’s part of the reason the Zoo brought in Ruth and Reese; that way when the cheetahs have to travel separately, they can at least have a doggy friend with them!

Taking classes …

Ro, Reh, Reese, and Ruth all are being trained by the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium Promotions staff. Using positive reinforcement training and behavior shaping (getting treats and praise when the animals perform a command correctly), the staff works with the cubs and the pups to teach them basic commands like “sit” and “come.” The Zoo trainers also use these techniques to get the animals used to different situations and different people – this is is especially important since these precious cubs and pups are going to be on the road as ambassadors for both the Columbus Zoo and for cheetahs around the world.

Reh learns “sit”

Of course, like most students, the “kids” like to take a nap after a hard day of studying!

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