242 AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS 



indicates a very large race, almost equalling a lioness in 

 size, and measures, greatest length, lo^ inches; greatest 

 breadth, g^^ inches. No other specimen closely approx- 

 imating the type in size and skull characters has been de- 

 tected in the collections of the United States National, 

 British, or Berlin Museums. We may possibly be dealing 

 here with an abnormal or freak specimen, but the limits of 

 the individual variation in leopards, as shown by the large 

 series examined, show that this specimen is well beyond 

 such limits in its peculiarities. 



The Cheetah 



Acinonyx 



Acinonyx Brookes, 1828, Cat. Anat. and Zool. Mus., Joshua Brookes, 

 London, p. 33; type A. venaticus of India. 



The cheetah is strikingly like a greyhound in body form 

 as well as in its non-retractile claws. It is the only living 

 member of the cat family that has succeeded in breaking 

 away from the typical cat type. Although the long, slender 

 racing body and canine claws give it conspicuous external 

 characters, the skull shows no less marked peculiarity com- 

 pared to that of the true cats. The skull is extremely high 

 and dome-shaped, with a much shorter jaw than any of the 

 cats, and is furnished with short canines and very narrow 

 carnassial teeth which have lost the large inner cusps so 

 conspicuous in cats and consequently the crushing power 

 of the teeth is less. The skull of the lynx approaches more 

 closely that of the cheetah than any other of the cats, but 

 it is more distinctly elongate and decidedly lower or less 

 dome-shaped, with typically feline teeth. The houndlike 

 form of the cheetah has been brought about by similarity 

 of habit and is not in any way due to closer blood-relation- 

 ship with the CanidcB^ for the cheetah is much more widely 

 removed by its skull structure from dogs than such typical 

 cats as the lion and the leopard. The cheetah may be 

 taken as an excellent illustration of the effect of habit on 

 body form. In general style of coloration the cheetah re- 

 sembles the serval cat, with which it shares much of its 

 territory. Both are marked uniformly by solid black spots 



