Biomechanics of the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)
You may be asking why this video is relevant to the biomechanics of a cheetah. Many people are aware that the cheetah is the fastest land animal on earth, so when the child in the video makes the suggestion to tape a cheetah to his grandmother’s back to increase her speed… you would think that made sense! However, research has shown that agility may be more important than actual speed when hunting.
The ability of a cheetah to stop and turn quickly is the key
to a successful hunt. Captive cheetahs have been clocked at around 62 miles per
hour (100 kilometers). To find out exactly what happens in wild cheetahs, researchers
at the Royal Veterinary College in London spent 10 years perfecting a collar
that had the ability to track the biometrics of the animal (e.g.speed, slow
downs, turns). The collars were active for one year, allowing for enormous data
sets to be collected.
“When activated, the collar records the animal's position,
velocity, and direction it's heading up to 300 times a second and relays that
data via radio signals to the researchers. Three female and two male cheetahs
wore these collars for 18 months, during which 367 hunting "runs"
were recorded” (Pennisi, 2013).
Surprisingly, research had shown that the cheetah slowed
down their speeds by 60% in order to outmaneuver their prey. The rate of speed
up and down was double that of polo horses and 4x faster than any human. Still,
with this amazing ability, the cheetah only brings down the prey 1 in four
times.
They also discovered that cheetah also hunt in the bushes
and vegetation and was not restricted to dawn, but was also done during the
day. Researchers made new discoveries and found the Cheetah was not like
previously thought. They are now studying other species.
references:
Image credit:
Pennisi, E., 2013. Science Magazine. http://news.sciencemag.org/2013/06/cheetah-agility-more-important-speed
No comments:
Post a Comment