Discover the secret in the running of cheetahs

The sharp eyes and the speed of the wind make the cheetah become a terrible predator in the African pasture.

>>>Discovering the fossil newspaper 'the bloodiest assassin' living near him

Scientists have discovered the secret of the fast-paced running of this leopard.The secret is that they can adjust the frequency of the speed-following step , similar to the "gearshift" mechanism of motorcycles and cars. The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Biology on June 21.

Cheetahs are physically and gallopingly similar to greyhound hounds, which are dubbed the king of speed dogs. But if placed on the same track for comparison, the hound will definitely be cheated for "smelling smoke". This terrifying predator can reach 105km / h while a hunting dog only has a speed of 68km / h. When targeting prey, cheetahs can accelerate from 0 to 96km / h in just 3 seconds, faster than most cars today.

Cheetahs are running in water to chase after their prey

To understand the secret to helping this cat-house predator to achieve such a record speed, scientists at the Royal Veterinary University of the United Kingdom have conducted parallel studies on the whole species. hunting dogs and cheetahs. They placed gravity meters on the ground and used high-speed cameras to record movement and force of each step.

The object of the study is the cheetahs at the ZSL Whipsnade zoo on the outskirts of London and at the center of South Africa's Ann van Dyk. There are also grayhound hounds used in dog races in England. However, the results showed that the newspapers who used to live in this zoo only had a maximum speed of 61km / h while the hound still kept "form" with a speed of 68km / h. Explaining this, scientists believe that the leopard is isolated from the natural environment, so it does not or does not have the opportunity to run 'out of gas'. So they cannot train special running skills to reach speeds of more than 100km / h.

However, the results recorded from high-speed videos also help the team find out the secret of cheetah's running steps. The secret lies in the frequency of their steps that can change with speed. At a speed of 32km / h, the average speed of a cheetah running 2.4 steps per second But at 61km / h, they can run 3.2 steps / sec. Meanwhile the grayhound dog still keeps the 3.5 step / second frequency at any speed. The frequency conversion mechanism of cheetahs is similar to the gear shift mode of motorcycles and cars.

When switching to wild cheetah research, scientists predict they will reach a frequency of 4 steps per second at maximum speed. With this special know-how, plus a larger step-by-step length, cheetahs easily leave other species and deserve the title of the fastest animal on land.

Reference: Livescience