Poison Dart Frogs

What kind of vehicle does your family own? An SUV? A truck? A van? Maybe a sports car? Different cars accelerate at different rates. Imagine a race between a van and a sports car. Which one would win? Well, the sports car of course! That’s because sports cars have very strong engines that help them speed up in just a few seconds. In fact, one of the fastest sports cars in the world is called the Enzo Ferrari, and it can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour (97 kilometers per hour) in just 3.1 seconds!

Now let’s put that Ferrari in the same kind of race . . . with a cheetah! Which one do you think can speed up faster? Yes! The cheetah! Faster by 0.1 seconds, that speedy cat would win the race!

The cheetah is the fastest land animal in the entire world and can run at speeds of up to 70 miles per hour (112 kilometers per hour). It’s almost impossible for anything to escape from a cheetah, and that’s really bad news for any animal that’s being pursued by this hungry cat. But there’s hope, because cheetahs have very small hearts and can only run fast for about 60 seconds before they start to get tired. The best chance a gazelle or a young wildebeest has is to run around in circles or zigzags, because the cheetah can only run fast if it’s running in a straight line, and running in circles slows them down! Cheetahs are smart, though. They know that if they can get close enough, they can stick out their front paw and trip their prey, making them fall down.

A cheetah’s long claws dig into the ground while they’re running, giving them great traction—just like the cleats on a baseball or soccer player’s shoes! And even though they are excellent hunters, cheetahs are only successful in catching their prey 50 percent of the time. That’s because their small heart can’t provide enough energy to their body, and they tire out quickly.