Was the ‘American cheetah’ a cheetah at all?

Tens of thousands of years ago, a long-legged cat nicknamed the “American cheetah” prowled North America. But an analysis of the cat family tree reveals this cheetah’s closest living relatives are pumas, researchers report September 4 in Current Biology .

That relationship matters because the nickname has long suggested a particular kind of animal: a specialized, high-speed predator like the African cheetah built to chase fleet-footed prey such as American pronghorn, which can sprint up to nearly 90 kilometers per hour. But a growing body of evidence hints that the American cheetah ( Miracinonyx trumani ) may be more closely related to…

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