The African cheetah is the fastest large land animal in the world.
Wasp-waisted, barrel-chested, lithe, a beautifully designed masterpiece of nature. It can for short periods attain about 100 kilometres per hour, enough to catch and bring down the fleet-footed grazing animals of the African plains. At least, it can catch them often enough to keep its species alive.
But it is no faster than it needs to be for that. It can catch just enough animals to feed itself and, f…
