Evidence on the Open Plains: teacher key

Cheetahs, grade 11 edition, written for 11th grade. What the evidence says about the fastest land animal. Read about the Botswana collars, camera traps, DNA and how cheetahs use space.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What did the Botswana study record for any land mammal?
   • Some of the highest acceleration and power values (answer)
   • The lowest heart rates
   • The longest migrations
2. What did the Serengeti Cheetah Project show about cheetahs?
   • They need large, connected areas of habitat (answer)
   • They live in dense crowds
   • They avoid grassland
3. What did fourteen skin grafts between unrelated cheetahs show in 1985?
   • Extreme genetic uniformity (answer)
   • Rapid healing in cats
   • A new subspecies
4. Why do researchers re-check camera-trap counts with a computer?
   • Human eyes may overcount (answer)
   • Cameras never work
   • Cheetahs wear collars
5. What does a generalist predator do?
   • Eats only one kind of food
   • Eats many kinds of food (answer)
   • Never hunts

Words

• collar: neck band
• scat: animal droppings
• genomes: all their genes
• homozygous: matching gene pairs
• generalist: eats many foods