Despite its speed, a cheetah catches prey only about half the time. It can sprint for just a few hundred yards before it starts to tire. If the chase is long, the exhausted cheetah will eventually collapse into the grass, with its rib cage pumping to recover its breath. Even when a cheetah succeeds, it may still lose its prize. Larger lions and leopards will steal a cheetah’s food if they can. But cheetahs, like all cats, can eat a lot and eat fast. At the back of their mouths, where you have teeth called molars, they have carnassials. These teeth have sharp edges that slice like scissors to bite off chunks of meat. Cats also have sharp bristles, called papillae, on their tongues to lick meat from bones. These papillae also help a cat clean its fur when it licks itself. A cheetah can swallow up to thirty pounds in one big meal. A lion may gulp down as much as seventy pounds. After a large feast a big cat will not need to hunt for several days.
The cheetah hunts mostly during the day, so unlike other big cats, it does not need good night vision. Nevertheless, its day vision is fearsomely sharp. A cheetah can spot a small gazellemoving more than amile away.
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