Kian

= My Animal: Cheetah = I chose the cheetah for my science project and researched its food chain. I did the quiz and showed the results below.
 * Checklist || Put 'o' if done ||
 * Choose an easily researchable animal || o ||
 * Explain how it hunts || o ||
 * Its habitat || o ||

What is a Food Chain?
A food chain is a cycle of life that every living animal is part of. Every animal depends on another animal for sourcing food and that animal depends on yet another animal for sourcing food, etc., until one animal depends again on the first animal which completes the cycle. If a single animal within a food chain becomes extinct, the entire food chain suffers and can be destroyed as a result.

What is a Food Web?
The food web is similar to the food chain but focuses only on one specific animal.

**Producers:**

 * The producers are living things that grow with the sun and the water.**
 * Examples:**
 * -Plants**
 * -Trees**

**Primary Consumers:**

 * The primary consumers are animals that feed on producers. They are also called herbivores.**
 * Examples:**
 * -Zebras**
 * -Giraffes**

**Secondary Consumers:**

 * The secondary consumers are animals that feed on the primary consumers. They are called carnivores.**
 * Examples:**
 * -Lions**
 * -Cheetahs**

Decomposers:

 * The decomposers are animals that feed on dead animals' flesh and meat.**
 * Examples:**
 * -Vultures**
 * -Hyenas**

**Quick Facts about the Cheetah:**

 * **The cheetah is the fastest animal in the world with a top speed of 120km/h.**
 * **The cheetah has really good eyesight which allows it to hunt very well.**
 * **The cheetah is becoming an endangered specie.**

Cheetah's Food Web:
Below is a photograph of the food web chart that I made:
 * //Below is an example of the characteristics of many animals. We used the website 'bubble.us' to make the picture shown below.//**

I made one about the cheetah as shown below:

Cheetah's habitat:
The cheetah lives in a place where it is hot with almost no rain fall and lots of open space. It usually lives in the grassland and the savanna where the ground is covered in high grass and that has a few trees and a few hills and a good amount of dispersed rocks. Below are two pictures showing what a grassland and a savannah look like:



Most of the cheetahs live in the grasslands in Africa. The picture below shows where the cheetahs live in Africa and how many there are.

You can see that most cheetahs live in the southern parts of Africa.

Below are a few photographs that show cheetahs and their natural habitat.



Cheetah's hunting technique:
Cheetahs are very fast and are really smart at hunting. They can reach their top speed very quickly which is a great advantage to them. They usually hunt animals like gazelles and antilops. To hunt these animals, they use their excellent eyesight instead of their sense of smell. They often choose animals that are by themselves and try to get close to their target. They crouch behind high grass or trees and are very hard to see because their spotted fur acts like camouflage in the grasslands. They always leave their bodies crouched low. Usually, when a cheetah hunts an animal and if a lion, tiger or hyena arrives and starts hunting the same prey, then the cheetah typically looses the hunt. Here is a video's link that you may find interesting: [|Video]

Cheetah's Speed:
The cheetah is the world's fastest mammal on Earth. It can accelerate from 0km/h to 103km/h in approximately 3 seconds and its top speed is between 112 to 120km/h which is extremely fast. This animal is very fast because, when running, the cheetah has its claws out and digs in the dirt which gives it an extra boost. It also runs fast because of its aerodynamic head and flexible spine. The cheetah is also very fast because it is light weight and it uses its tail to get balance.

Cheetah's Adaptation:
The cheetah adapts to its environment by finding a home, a family and preys. The cheetah, when settled in, makes itself a home and reproduces.

Human = Cheetah's Friend?:
In the olden days, the cheetah was very much liked by humans. The humans used them as pets or hunting friends because they were very fast hunting companions which was very useful to the humans. The cheetahs were therefore protected by the humans and fed by them. In modern times, however, cheetahs are hunted by humans because the humans do not need them to hunt any more and want the cheetah's fur because it sells for a lot of money.

Cheetah Reproduction:
The cheetahs have to reproduce.

-King Cheetah
The king cheetah is a type of cheetah that distinguishes itself by its fur. Instead of having dots on its body, it has a straight line passing through the back. A picture of a king cheetah is shown below:

- Leopard
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