Day 6
Professor Abraham
It's been quite a rough night for me yesterday, but I am glad that it's finally morning.
Nina hasn't woken up yet since yesterday afternoon, and that made me worried.
But when I contacted the doctor, she told me that it's normal as she has injected her with some medicine that will make her sleep for about twenty-four hours or so, and this will make her recovery faster.
So, I decided to just let her be for the time being.
It's not rainy today, so I decided to go out with the students and have a little lecture of some sort.
The others even insisted that I stay back and take care of Nina.
I really did want to do so, but I have other responsibilities towards the students, so I had to go.
But I made sure to keep her under the safe care of her friend, Lily, who insisted she stay back.
So, here we are now, not far from the camp site, as I want to go back as early as possible.
Lucky for me, I spotted a cheetah lying down under the trees and resting. 
Of course there were no animals around; otherwise, it might have been hunting by now.
Without wasting any more time, I went straight to the lectures.
"The cheetah, Acinonyx jubatus, is a large cat and native to Africa and central Iran, and it is the fastest land animal, estimated to be capable of running at 80 to 128 km/h, with the fastest reliably recorded speeds being 93 and 98 km/h, and as such has several adaptations for speed, including a light build, long, thin legs, and a long tail," I began, pointing at the cheetah to them.
It seemed to be minding its own business and not bothered by our presence.
"It typically reaches 67–94 cm at the shoulder, and the head and body length are between 1.1 and 1.5 m," I continue. 
"Adults weigh between 21 and 72 kg, their heads are small and rounded, and they have a short snout and black tear-like facial streaks."
"The coat is typically tawny to creamy white or pale buff and is mostly covered with evenly spaced, solid black spots," I say.
"And there are four subspecies recognized," I add.
"The cheetah lives in three main social groups: females and their cubs, male coalitions, and solitary males," I say.
"While females lead a nomadic life searching for prey in large home ranges, males are more sedentary and instead establish much smaller territories in areas with plentiful prey and access to females," I continue.
"The cheetah is active during the day, with peaks during dawn and dusk; it feeds on small to medium prey, mostly weighing under 40 kg, and prefers medium-sized ungulates such as impala, springbok, and Thomson's gazelles." 
"The cheetah typically stalks its prey to within 60–70 m, charges towards it, trips it during the chase, and bites its throat to suffocate it to death.
"It also breeds throughout the year; after a gestation of nearly three months, a litter of typically three or four cubs is born."
"Cheetah cubs are highly vulnerable to predation by other large carnivores such as hyenas and lions, and they are weaned at around four months and are independent by around 20 months of age," I say.
"The cheetah occurs in a variety of habitats, such as savannahs in the Serengeti, arid mountain ranges in the Sahara, and hilly desert terrain in Iran," I say.
"The cheetah is threatened by several factors, such as habitat loss, conflict with humans, poaching, and high susceptibility to diseases." I pause to take a deep breath.
"Historically ranging throughout most of Sub-Saharan Africa and extending eastward into the Middle East and to central India, the cheetah is now distributed mainly in small, fragmented populations in central Iran and southern, eastern, and northwestern Africa," I continue.
"In 2016, the global cheetah population was estimated at around 7,100 individuals in the wild; it is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List." 
"In the past, cheetahs were tamed and trained for hunting ungulates; they have been widely depicted in art, literature, advertising, and animation."
'The vernacular name 'cheetah' is derived from Hindustani Urdu and Hindi; this in turn comes from Sanskrit, Chitra-ya, meaning 'variegated', 'adorned', or 'painted'" I say. 
"In the past, the cheetah was often called 'hunting leopard' because they could be tamed and used for coursing; the generic name Acinonyx probably derives from the combination of two Greek words, akinitos, meaning unmoved or motionless, and onyx, meaning nail or hoof."
"A rough translation is immobile nails, a reference to the cheetah's limited ability to retract its claws."
"A similar meaning can be obtained by the combination of the Greek prefix implying a lack of and meaning to move or to set in motion."
"The specific name jubatus is Latin for crested, having a mane."
"A few old generic names such as Cynailurus and Cynofelis allude to the similarities between the cheetah and canids'
"In 1777, Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber described the cheetah based on a skin from the Cape of Good Hope and gave it the scientific name Felis jubatus; Joshua Brookes proposed the generic name Acinonyx in 1828; and in 1917, Reginald Innes Pocock placed the cheetah in a subfamily of its own, Acinonychinae. Given its striking morphological resemblance to the greyhound and significant deviation from typical felid features, the cheetah was classified in Felinae in later taxonomic revisions," I say.
"In 1975, five subspecies were considered valid taxa: A. j. hecki, A. j. jubatus, A. j. raineyi, A. j. soemmeringii, and A. j. venaticus."
"In 2011, a phylogeographic study found minimal genetic variation between A. jubatus and A. j. raineyi, and so only four subspecies were identified."
"In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group revised felid taxonomy and recognized these four subspecies as valid."
"The cheetah's closest relatives are the cougar, Puma concolor, and the jaguarundi, Herpailurus yagouaroundi, and together, these three species form the Puma lineage, one of the eight lineages of the extant felids; the Puma lineage diverged from the rest 6.7 mya."
"The sister group of the Puma lineage is a clade of smaller Old World cats that includes the genera Felis, Otocolobus, and Prionailurus," I say.
"The three species of the Puma lineage may have had a common ancestor during the Miocene, roughly 8.25 mya; some suggest that North American cheetahs possibly migrated to Asia via the Bering Strait, then dispersed southward to Africa through Eurasia at least 100,000 years ago."
"The cheetah is a lightly built, spotted cat characterized by a small, rounded head, a short snout, black tear-like facial streaks, a deep chest, long, thin legs, and a long tail," I continue.
"Its slender, canine-like form is highly adapted for speed and contrasts sharply with the robust build of the genus Panthera," I say. 'Cheetahs typically reach 67–94 cm at the shoulder, and the head and body length are between 1.1 and 1.5 m. The weight can vary with age, health, location, sex, and subspecies, and adults typically range between 21 and 72 kg."
"Cubs born in the wild weigh 150–300 g at birth, while those born in captivity tend to be larger and weigh around 500 g," I say.
"Cheetahs are sexually dimorphic, with males larger and heavier than females, but not to the extent seen in other large cats; studies differ significantly on morphological variations among the subspecies," I continue.
"The coat is typically tawny to creamy white or pale buff darker in the mid-back portion; the chin, throat, and underparts of the legs and the belly are white and devoid of markings, while the rest of the body is covered with around 2,000 evenly spaced, oval or round solid black spots, each measuring roughly 3–5 cm," I say.
"Each cheetah has a distinct pattern of spots that can be used to identify unique individuals. Besides the clearly visible spots, there are other faint, irregular black marks on the coat."
"Newly born cubs are covered in fur with an unclear pattern of spots that gives them a dark appearance, with a pale white above and nearly black on the underside."
"The hair is mostly short and often coarse, but the chest and the belly are covered in soft fur; the fur of king cheetahs has been reported to be silky."
"There is a short, rough mane, covering at least 8 cm along the neck and the shoulders; this feature is more prominent in males; the mane starts out as a cape of long, loose blue to grey hair in juveniles."
"The head is small and more rounded compared to the big cats; Saharan cheetahs have canine-like slim faces; the ears are small, short, and rounded; they are tawny at the base and on the edges and marked with black patches on the back."
"The eyes are set high and have round pupils, while the whiskers are shorter and fewer than those of other felids but are fine and inconspicuous," I say. 
"The pronounced tear streaks, or malar stripes, unique to the cheetah, originate from the corners of the eyes and run down the nose to the mouth."
"The role of these streaks is not well understood, but they may protect the eyes from the sun's glare, which is a helpful feature as the cheetah hunts mainly during the day, or they could be used to define facial expressions," I continue.
"The exceptionally long and muscular tail, with a bushy white tuft at the end, measures 60–80 cm; while the first two-thirds of the tail are covered in spots, the final third is marked with four to six dark rings or stripes."
"The cheetah is superficially similar to the leopard, but the leopard has rosettes instead of spots and lacks tear streaks; moreover, the cheetah is slightly taller than the leopard," I say. 
"The serval resembles the cheetah in physical build but is significantly smaller, has a shorter tail, and its spots fuse to form stripes on the back. The cheetah appears to have evolved convergently with canids in morphology and behavior; it has canine-like features such as a relatively long snout, long legs, a deep chest, tough paw pads, and blunt, semi-retractable claws." 
"The cheetah has often been likened to the greyhound, as both have similar morphology and the ability to reach tremendous speeds in a shorter time than other mammals, but the cheetah can attain higher maximum speeds."
"The cheetah is the fastest land animal; estimates of the maximum speed attained range from 80 to 128 km/h; a commonly quoted value is 112 km/h, recorded in 1957, but this measurement is disputed." 
"In 2012, an 11-year-old cheetah named Sarah from the Cincinnati Zoo set a world record by running 100 m in 5.95 seconds over a set run, recording a maximum speed of 98 km/h," I say.
"Contrary to the common belief that cheetahs hunt by simply chasing their prey at high speeds, the findings of two studies in 2013 observing hunting cheetahs using GPS collars show that cheetahs hunt at speeds much lower than the highest recorded for them during most of the chase, interspersed with a few short bursts lasting only seconds when they attain peak speeds," I say. 
"In one of the studies, the average speed recorded during the high speed phase was 53.64 km/h, or within the range of 41.4–65.88 km/h, including error." 
"The highest recorded value was 93.24 km/h. The researchers suggested that a hunt consists of two phases: an initial fast acceleration phase when the cheetah tries to catch up with the prey, followed by slowing down as it closes in on it, the deceleration varying by the prey in question; the peak acceleration observed was 2.5 m/s2, while the peak deceleration value was 7.5 m/s2." 
"Speed and acceleration values for a hunting cheetah may be different from those for a non-hunter because, while engaged in the chase, the cheetah is more likely to be twisting and turning and may be running through vegetation."