Evolution Of The Cheetah Research Paper

EVOLUTION OF THE CHEETAH

Tarik Tillman

Table of Contents

1. Phylogenetic Tree……………………………… 2

2. Animal’s Current State………………………… 3

3. Affecting Its Survival: Evironmental Changes… 4

4. The Beginning A New Era………………………... 5

5. The Evolutionary Future Is Near!...................... 6 Phylogenetic Tree Animals today are facing many environmental stresses like the decline of prey and the loss habitat. Animals deal with these stresses by adapting using the mechanisms of evolution: founder effect, bottleneck, nonrandom mating, mutation, and natural selection. The animal we’ll be focusing on is the Acinonyx Jubatus, also known as the cheetah. According to the phylogenetic tree, the cheetah came from a common, but distant ancestor

With these evolutionary changes, the cheetah strives at being the fastest land mammal. The skin protects the cheetah from injuries and actually helps them with camouflage; the cheetah’s fur is covered in solid black spots just like their skin. The black fur actually grows out of the black spots on their skin giving the cheetah it’s spotted pattern. The cheetah have an enlarged heart, lungs, nostrils, and sinuses that allow the animal to deliver oxygen to its muscles more effectively. Along with the cheetah’s fur, the cheetah’s warm blood keeps the animal body temperture at a constant rate and keeps the animal warm on cold

For instance, our friend the cheetah, evolved from a trout and a rabbit according to the phylogenetic tree we discussed earlier in “Phylogenetic Tree”. Due to the cheetah’s evolutionary changes, a new species is born; the Acinonyx Tabatus or the Celion. The Celion is somewhat similar but different from the cheetah due to some evolutionary changes. If we take a look at the phylogenetic tree below of the celion, we can see the evolutionary history of the cheetah and celion.

Above we can see the evolutionary history of the cheetah and the celion. It appears that the celion has some Ancestral Traits. Ancestral Traits are features that do appear in ancestors. These features are: skin, lungs, warm blood, fur, canine teeth, and a spotted pattern. However, unlike the cheetah, the celion has more physical features that will better suit it for survival. Due to the evolutionary changes that took place after the cheetah, the celion has a higher density of capillaries, retractable claws, and hair rather than fur. These traits are what you’ll call “derived traits”. Derived traits are newly evolved features that do not appear in ancestors. With these traits the celion is fit (best suited to survive). If the celion is fit, then it is fit enough to live and fit enough to