The American “cheetah” wasn’t a cheetah at all

The extinct “American cheetah” was not really a cheetah at all, but a puma relative with an unexpectedly flexible lifestyle. Fossils from the Yukon suggest northern populations survived partly by eating fish, possibly including salmon, while southern cats hunted on land. The American “cheetah” wasn’t a cheetah at all.

The American “cheetah” wasn’t a cheetah at all Science News from research organizations The American “cheetah” wasn’t a cheetah at all The American “cheetah” was really a puma relative that reached the Arctic, ate fish, and evolved a cheetah-like body all on its own. Evidence from nuclear paleogenomes and stable isotopes shows that the animal was not actually a cheetah. Instead, it was a highly adaptable close relative of the puma, and populations living in the far north appear to have relied heavily on fish to survive in Arctic environments.

The findings, published on September 4 in Current Biology, also extend the known range of the species by about 20 degrees of latitude farther north than scientists had previously recognized. Trumani lived as a generalist predator in temperate grasslands. In the Arctic Yukon, however, the cats occupied a very different ecological role as tertiary consumers and likely specialized in anadromous fish such as salmon.

Adult Miracinonyx trumani are thought to have weighed about 150 pounds on average, stood roughly 3 feet tall, and measured around 8 feet from head to the tip of the tail.