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© Copyright 1999, Jim Loy
While reading the excellent and exciting books by Peter Capstick (Death In The Long Grass, and others), I was somewhat shocked to read that cheetahs are not cats. I had always assumed that cheetahs were cats. Are they?
The cheetah hunts by running down its prey, much as dogs do. Cats don't normally do this. They stalk their prey. Well, a whole pride of lions may sometimes run down their prey, after stalking them.
And, a cheetah does not have retractable claws. All other cats have retractable claws.
Do the zoologists agree with Mr. Capstick? Do they say that the cheetah is not a cat? Not really. Officially, the cheetah is classified as a member of the Felidae family. Felidae (feline) means "cat."
But this does reflect on the difficulty (even futility) of fitting things into neat categories.