Cheetahs are one of the most recognizable animals in Africa. They are currently listed as “Threatened” which their numbers are low. What a lot of people don’t know is that they almost died out long ago. Sometime around the last ice age their numbers dropped very low. The survivors interbred, which means that all cheetahs are descended from this small group of individuals. As a result, they are all very closely related. This was confirmed when scientists performed an experiment. They took skin grafts from several unrelated cheetahs and grafted them onto different cheetahs. In humans, any sort of transplant like this requires drugs to suppress the immune system – otherwise, your body will reject the new skin because it’s too different from you. But in the cheetahs, there was no problem at all. They are so genetically similar that their bodies accepted the skin as part of themselves!
Unfortunately, this causes problems for the cheetahs. If one of them is susceptible to a disease, then it means ALL of them are. One virus could wipe out the entire population. And that’s why scientists and conservationists are trying to help save this beautiful animal.
Wikipedia article on cheetahs, including a picture of the rare King Cheetah.
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