Cheetahs -- Can they interbreed with other big cats?

[gytalf2000]

I know that lions and tigers can interbreed and produce ligers and tiglons. Are cheetahs capable of interbreeding with the other big cats, or are they too genetically distinct to do so?

[John Mace]

Cheetahs aren't actually "big cats". I put that in quotes because it's not a scientific term. But cheetahs are not as closely related as the real "big" cats are to each other. Cheetahs are more like "inbetween cats".

I'm not aware of any verified cheetah hybrids out there.

[jz78817]

Cheetahs have enought trouble breeding amongst themselves.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...are-breed.html

[Chronos]

Cheetahs are more like "inbetween cats".

Actually, I don't think they're related to the "small cats", either. As in, a housecat and a lion are closer to each other than either is to a cheetah.

One telltale marker is retractable claws. All the true cats have them, but cheetahs don't.

[Polycarp]

Wikipedia on the Felidae may be informative.

Of the "big cats," the lion, tiger, jaguar, and leopard are in genus Panthera. Some experts also put the snow leopard there; Wikipedia, following a "splitter" paradigm, puts it in Uncia. The clouded leopards are in Neofelis. These two or three genera are closely related.

Older analyses (from when I learned felid taxonomy) set the cheetah apart from all other cats great and small in its own subfamily, Acinonychinae. The taxonomy that Wikipedia follows (based on DNA analysis) shows it as the separate genus Acinonyx which is closely related to Puma, comprising the mountain lion and the jaguaroundi.

[heathen earthling]

I don't think anyone knows. Cheetahs are a threatened species, and zoos breeding them are probably more interested in making more cheetahs. The closest living relative of the cheetah is the puma, and pumas can interbreed with leopards...

[maggenpye]

Originally Posted by John Mace

(snip)

I'm not aware of any verified cheetah hybrids out there.

So... once a cheetah, always a cheetah.





Sorry, tried to resist, failed.

[Darwin's Finch]

Originally Posted by John Mace

Cheetahs aren't actually "big cats". I put that in quotes because it's not a scientific term. But cheetahs are not as closely related as the real "big" cats are to each other. Cheetahs are more like "inbetween cats".

There isn't really anything 'inbetween' about cheetahs:

Defining Cheetahs, a multivariate analysis of skull shape in big cats (pdf doc)

CONCLUSIONS
On the basis of this study, a Cheetah can be defined as a cat with narrow teeth, small canines
and a wide brain case for its size. Despite being a highly specialized cat, it still follows the
generalized large felid form in 21 out of 34 variables analysed. The dental differences seen
are adaptations to capturing and killing prey that have occurred in the genus Acinonyx alone.
In addition, the Cheetah has retained some cranial features of the smaller cats, despite
increasing its overall size. In view of this, it is not so much that Cheetahs have altered that is
surprising, but how apparently conservative the feline cranial shape has been over the last
few million years.

Further, since they are presumed to share a common ancestor with pumas, about the only thing they could be "between" is other cats.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by Darwin's Finch

There isn't really anything 'inbetween' about cheetahs:

Sure there is. They are big in size, but they don't roar. Again, "big cat" is not a scientific term, as I'm sure you know. So, there are different ways to define "big cat", and one of the definition is the cats that roar. And if you take that as your definition, then can't call a cheetah a "big cat", but you don't really want to call a cheetah a "small cat", so intermediate does the job well, in a completely nonscientific way, of course.

[Darwin's Finch]

Sorry, I actually misunderstood your 'inbetween' to mean that cheetahs were between cats and...something else. My response was that they are between 'some cats' and 'other cats', and are, therefore, full-on cats. Didn't even occur to me that you were talking about size.... Apologies for the misunderstanding.

[VOW]

Do cheetahs purr?


~VOW

[cornflakes]

Originally Posted by jz78817

Cheetahs have enought trouble breeding amongst themselves.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...are-breed.html

Then it's true that cheetahs never prosper....

[Tamerlane]

Originally Posted by VOW

Do cheetahs purr?

Apparently.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by Darwin's Finch

Sorry, I actually misunderstood your 'inbetween' to mean that cheetahs were between cats and...something else. My response was that they are between 'some cats' and 'other cats', and are, therefore, full-on cats. Didn't even occur to me that you were talking about size.... Apologies for the misunderstanding.

No worries. The whole thing about "big cats" is kind of a distraction anyway since it's not a scientific designation. But, yes, cheetahs are cats in every sense of the word.

[Tristan]

I recall hearing at MArine World (I think) that apparently some long time in the past, Cheetahs were almost extinct, but have bred back to where they are today via some rather vicious inbreeding. However, rather than the usual issues that comes with that, instead Cheetah's have become almost clones of each other, to the point where tissue grafts from cheetah to cheetah usually do not require immunosuppressants.

Anecdotal, obviously.

[gytalf2000]

Thanks for the information, guys!

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by Tristan

I recall hearing at MArine World (I think) that apparently some long time in the past, Cheetahs were almost extinct, but have bred back to where they are today via some rather vicious inbreeding. However, rather than the usual issues that comes with that, instead Cheetah's have become almost clones of each other, to the point where tissue grafts from cheetah to cheetah usually do not require immunosuppressants.

Anecdotal, obviously.

Yes, that's pretty much the case. They recently went through what geneticists call a genetic bottleneck. Something we probably went through sometime around 60k - 80k years ago. Ours probably wasn't quite so bad, but it still happened.

[Rhythmdvl]

Tangentially and temporally related XKCD.

[Saint Cad]

Anecdotedly, in Africa many families keep Cheetahs as housecats.

[John Mace]

Originally Posted by Saint Cad

Anecdotedly, in Africa many families keep Cheetahs as housecats.

How "many"? There aren't very many cheetahs in existence.

[Snickers]

Originally Posted by VOW

Do cheetahs purr?


~VOW

Originally Posted by Tamerlane

Apparently.

Holy cats. Now I totally want to pet a cheetah.

And I really, really doubt there's many Africans that keep cheetahs as housecats. They're large, powerful animals, and well equipped to easily take out a human. I'd bet the frequency of Africans keeping cheetahs as housecats is about the same as the frequency of Americans keeping cheetahs as housecats - that is to say, small enough to be almost zero.

[Drunky Smurf]

Originally Posted by VOW

Do cheetahs purr?


~VOW

Originally Posted by Tamerlane

Apparently.

Apparantly they meow too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN8L9...eature=related

[Tamerlane]

Originally Posted by Snickers

Holy cats. Now I totally want to pet a cheetah.

Be sure to get one of those fancified "King Cheetahs" .

I'd bet the frequency of Africans keeping cheetahs as housecats is about the same as the frequency of Americans keeping cheetahs as housecats - that is to say, small enough to be almost zero.

I suspect you're correct. They simply aren't common enough these days to be...well...common pets.

But they are remarkably easy to tame relative to other wild cats and when they were common, local nobility all over Africa and Asia kept them to course game. Another appropos wiki-photo. If they weren't so extraordinarily difficult to breed in captivity I suspect they would have been fully domesticated thousands of years ago and you could have gotten your wish. We'd probably have rescue programs the same as exist for ex-racing greyhounds today that would be begging for folks to adopt them.

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by jz78817

Cheetahs have enought trouble breeding amongst themselves.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...are-breed.html

I've long been a supporter of the Cheetah Conservation Fund. Dr. Marker and her team are doing fantastic work to save these beautiful animals in the wild.