Cheetahs are weaklings . There’s barely reason why they should exist at all.

The ecology that they survive in is already oversaturated with big cats. They’ve carved out this super-tiny niche of going after prey that’s just like the tiniest fraction of a percent too fast for the other big cats. They don’t even really hide or sneak very effectively (okay, they can do it a little).

Mostly their hunting strategy is based on inching up to some already-exhausted prey that’s stopped for water or rest or something. As they inch up to the prey, the prey will have to judge “Is it too close? Is it worth me wasting more precious energy to move another metre away, or should I keep drinking?”. With enough patience, eventually some dumb prey animal will make a tiny miscalculation, or get momentarily distracted, and the cheetah will be just barely close enough that it can start a chase.

And its chase will almost always fail. In the rare event that the cheetah actually catches something, it will usually have to let it go, anyway. Cheetahs are so small and weak, with disproportionately weak jaws, that they struggle to actually bring down prey what they catch. (Cheetahs can easily get killed or seriously injured by the much-stronger-prey they’ve caught, so they have to be very careful). In the event that they actually do make a kill, they then, while still near-death from exhaustion, have to eat as quickly as possible. Pretty well every kill a cheetah makes will very quickly have to be abandoned, as a bigger and stronger cat will come along and take it.

But it gets worse. Their socialization is absolutely abysmal. Fathers do not do anything except impregnate the mother. In the best of circumstances (healthy, single), a cheetah will be constantly on the brink of death. But mothers have to do all of that while pregnant and bringing home extra food to feed the cubs. And, in evolution’s infinite wisdom, it has granted males the ability to socialize and hunt in pairs (a huge advantage, usually between brothers), but females will typically refuse to socialize, and mother cheetahs will only rarely get any hunting help from their sisters.

If you were to draw up a pro-con list of the cheetah vs every other predator, cheetahs would be like 99 cons and 1 pro. That 1 pro is that they can chase as fuck. Like it would be an insult to even say that they’re the best chasers on the planet. They’re an entire league beyond every other chaser on the planet. Everybody knows about their speed, but their speed isn’t even the most impressive part of their chasing. They can turn and stop on a dime and will run routes better than the animal they’re chasing. Watch a cheetah chase in slow-motion and keep in mind all of the other evolutionary sacrifices (small, weak, tiny jaw, no endurance, bad at hiding, etc. etc.) that just dumped everything into its supernatural chasing ability…which still usually fails.

Anyway, there’s really no good reason they should still exist, but they’re so remarkable.