What Makes Cheetahs the Fastest Animals On Earth?

A recent study claims that cheetahs — Earth’s fastest land animals — owe their blistering speed to body length. In fact, the study says that almost every animal’s top speed should be about 10 times its body length per second. That’s true for every animal from mice to humans to whales. The exception? Animals that fly — they’re in a class of their own.

Because cheetahs are so incredibly fast, photographing them at full speed is nearly impossible. But recently, the folks at National Geographic did it, and the video below describes their exact process.

For all you track-and-field fans, the cheetah ran the 100-meter dash in just 5.65 seconds. That makes world-record holder Usain Bolt look downright sloth-like.

12 Comments

  1. I can type to, ndjaocnwnxock. Wisconsin SMS XD sksmcismxk lol jdjsxndjwnx pants burritoe. Also a cheetah would pretty muspch beat anything. Except the mako shark, maybe though.

  2. Yeah, it says “This video does not exist”. I wanted to see it, and that cheetah was like OMG AWESOME!

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