Here’s the fastest 100-meter dash run by any living mammal (I’m not sure, though, whether some aquatic creatures might not beat that, and falcons, of course, can dive at 200 mph+).
National Geographic gives the story:
Sarah the cheetah has shattered the world record for the standing 100-meter dash, clocking a time of 5.95 seconds—making Olympian Usain Bolt’s world record of 9.58 seconds look positively stodgy by comparison.
On a USA Track & Field-certified course established by the Cincinnati Zoo, the 11-year-old cheetah was radar-timed at up to 61 miles (98 kilometers) an hour, according to a Thursday announcement by zoo officials and National Geographic magazine. The magazine photographed Sarah and other zoo cheetahs for a project to be featured in its November issue, which will include unprecedented high-speed pictures.
Sarah’s June 20 sprint is the fastest timed 100 meters ever run by anything on the planet, the officials said—though it was no suprise to Cathryn Hilker, founder of the Cincinnati Zoo’s Cat Ambassador Program, who helped raise Sarah from a cub.
“Nobody can run like Sarah,” Hilker said. “She’s special. I always knew she could run under six seconds, but to see it happen like this is wonderful.”
“She looked like a polka-dotted missile,” added National Geographic photo editor Kim Hubbard. “I’ve never seen anything alive run that fast.”
When I saw the video on YouTube, I thought that cheetahs in the wild, which are literally running for their lives (e.g., their dinner), might go faster. The article addresses that issue:
As astonishingly swift as Sarah’s world record time of 5.95 seconds might seem in a human context, it’s almost certain that cheetahs in the wild—lean, hungry, chasing down antelopes for their own survival or that of their cubs—have run considerably faster.
“This is just for fun, as far as they’re concerned,” Hilker said. “They know they’re going to get fed. They can see the finish line.”
h/t: Ben Goren
The really tricky bit would be to get a cheetah to understand what the the starting gun means.
Dawkinsdammit, mistyped after lunch again! Delete second “the”.
NOW
IS THE
THE TIME
Print that out with the text centered, draw an quilateral triangle around it, and ask people to read it. Few will notice the extra “the.”
Cheers,
b&
Or the missing “e” in quilateral.
I think it might have something to do about a law of conservation of character….
b&
As an aside, the fastest published speed for a cheetah is 29ms^-1 (64.87mph) [1]. Reports of speeds up to 71mph, while possible, are unsubstantiated.
[1] Sharp, N.C.C. (1997). Journal of Zoology. 241(3): 493-494.
Looks like this one wasn’t fast enough:
Cheetah speed is what many of us always suspected. Also suspected wild cheetahs would run faster than captive cheetahs. Is it like comparing a trained sprinter to an average person? If so, wild cheetahs would run considerably faster. 5.5 seconds?
Put a hungry Sarah behind Usain Bolt, and I bet he’d do considerably better than 9.58. At least until she catches him. 🙂
…which would happen, I should think, in considerably less time than 9.58 seconds….
b&
Two people are walking on the African Savanna when they notice a Cheetah off in the distance, licking it’s chops. One person drops to their knees and starts to retie their sneakers. The other person says, “What are you thinking? You can’t outrun a Cheetah!,” to which the first person responds, “I don’t have to outrun the Cheetah – I just have to outrun you!”
Here’s another Olympic contender. How about the fin whale for the marathon. If the ultra-marathon ever goes Olympic she is ready for that event as well.
A bit of Googling suggests the fastest fish is the sailfish, which has been clocked at 68 mph, which is in the same range as the cheetah, but not quite as fast as the fastest cheetahs. Next up on the list of fast fish is the marlin, at 50 mph.
Considering the considerable drag imparted by water, I’d expect the land animal to go faster.
In evolutionary terms, fish have had a lot longer to refine the mechanics, and, indeed, all the fast aquatic animals (including dolphins) have the same basic torpedo-shaped body plan that intelligent human design suggests really is optimal. I don’t think a human engineer, given similar constraints on the density of the fuel source, could do significantly better.
The cheetah body design is damned impressive, but it’s far from optimal. If there were an evolutionary pathway to develop a biological locomotive wheel…well, Lance Armstrong in a velomobile would at least give a cheetah a run for its money, and quite possibly smoke it. And that’s in a sprint — Lance in a velo could easily keep up with highway traffic on a long-distance all-day cross-country trek, whereas the cheetah will drop of exhaustion in well under a mile.
Cheers,
b&
If your number about the sailfish is correct it is far more impressive than the cheetah. Drag is exponentially greater in water. I believe atlantic bottle nose dolphins top out at about 20mph, and for water that is very fast.
True, but, if I’m not mistraken, sailfish do their speed swimming not only at the surface but partially out of the water. That cuts down greatly on drag…and, with their body plan, drag isn’t that much of a factor to begin with. That means they get the advantages of a good medium to push off of without the disadvantages of having it slow them down.
Any ichthyologists out there who actually know something about the subject, feel free to jump in and make me look like and idiot….
b&
As far as I’m aware, the 68mph for sailfish was estimated based on the rate at which an individual took out 100m of line. This included leaps out of water.
As Ben says, the body plan of sailfish minimises drag. They’re laterally flattened, relying on stiff pectoral fins to maintain stability when moving at speed and the sail flattens into a dorsal groove. When moving at high speeds in a straight line, propulsion is generated in the posterior third rather than a whole-body undulation, further minimising drag.
“some aquatic creatures might not beat that, and falcons, of course, can dive at 200 mph+”
Yes, water density is a problem, and I’d definitely expect billfish to be the fastest sprinters. Having had the chance to snorkel in the Galapagos, however, I’m betting that penguins might give them a good race. Squid are the fastest invertebrates; I’ve seen 8 m/s cited (= 30 km/h).
And falcon dives are, of course, gravity assisted. Really fast powered flight is more like 100 km/h (link)
Very few macroscopic fully rotary joints exist. Didn’t we have an insect one, a special trait, here a few months back? So that one won’t roll.
Instead I would put a long distance bird against a long distance biker.
Hmmm…that would be an interesting challenge, indeed.
Double century bike rides are not at all uncommon. That’s 200 miles in one day, and on a conventional upright. And these are amateurs, with course times in the ten to eleven hour range.
Lance in a velo on a flat route (say, across the Midwest) should have no trouble doing 500 miles a day, maybe even significantly more, and that would include breaks for food and sleeping.
I don’t know about the long-distance cruising capabilities of migratory birds, but I would be surprised if it was substantially better than that. Indeed, I think I might be surprised to learn that a bird could cover even 500 miles in a day. Non-stop without rest, that’s 21 mph…nothing for a sprint or a dive, but impressive for an endurance distance run.
b&
One example would be the bar-tailed godwit which flies non-stop between Alaska and New Zealand, that’s 11,000km in 8 days. That works out as an average speed of around 57kmh, or 35mph [1].
[1] Gill R. E Jr et al. (2009). Proc R Soc B 276: 447–457.
Then color me both surprised and impressed.
That’s 850 miles per day, which I think would be just a wee bit of a challenge even for Lance in a velo.
…hell, 850 miles is about as much as I’d want to do in a single day in a general aviation aircraft….
Thanks!
b&
What the heck is a velo? I’m guessing by context and the meaning of the word in French that it is some sort of specialized wheeled human powered transport device, but searching brings up nothing but bicycles.
Velomobile. Quite popular in the Netherlands, slowly catching on elsewhere.
In North America, the biggest player is Blue Velo in Canada, and all they do is manufacture relicensed versions of the leading Dutch model.
Cheers,
b&
Thank you!
Wouldn’t Lance on a bike be cheating? Where’s the fish’s bicycle?
I think the fish’s bicycle was borrowed by a woman in need of a man.
As I said above, the fastest published speed for a cheetah is 29ms^-1 (64.87mph) [1]. There have been reports of cheetah attaining speeds of up to 71mph and while this is certainly possible, perhaps even likely, these claims are currently unsubstantiated.
[1] Sharp, N.C.C. (1997). Journal of Zoology. 241(3): 493-494.
As I was just going off the introductory paragraph of Wikipedia, I’ll just revise the statement to note that the two speeds are in the same range and leave it at that.
…I’ll also note that Sarah is an old cheetah, at eleven years….
Cheers,
b&
I thought tunas were really fast too. They actually pull their fins in close to their body to reduce drag.
You know what’s even faster than a tuna with its fins tucked in?
Gopher tuna.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIwrgAnx6Q8
Cheers,
b&
I’ve actually had the opportunity a few years back to stroke a tame cheetah. I’ve been close to them at other times too and it’s always a bit of thrill to be near an animal that is so beautiful and physically superior.
No, no, no, Bolt is 60 % slower than the cheetah, of course! Third rule of fight club: you always compare with the master.
The interesting part is that the cheetah had the power to accelerate through at least the same distance as human sprinters would do it. Given that the distance goes as a square of time at constant acceleration, the cheetah will hit top speed at about the same time – but be going that much faster.
Apparently the spine tailed swift can go over 100 miles/hr in level flight.
Interesting!
Quick-and-dirty Googling didn’t tell me much. Any idea on how long it can sustain those speeds? And does it need to start its runs with a dive to build up to that speed?
b&
That’s another as-yet unsubstantiated claim. The fastest speed for a bird in level flight reported thus far is 69.5mph for a common swift [1].
[1] Hennigson et al. (2010). How swift are swifts? J Avian Biol 2010 41: 94-98.
I’m not being pedantic with these citations by the way, just trying to inform.
The RSPB adds, “Surprisingly, the humble eider [duck] is thought by many to be the fastest bird in steady level flight. It is difficult to record the steady flight of many species but of those that have been reliably clocked, the eider comes out on top with an impressive 47.2 mph.”
/@
Huh. I had no idea eiders could go that fast. Thanks for the info.
A group of scientists from Spain, Denmark, and the US (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute) published a study on short finned pilot whales, which they deemed “cheetahs of the deep sea.” The whales don’t begin to reach 64 mph (they were recorded around 20 mph) — but quite impressive considering the finite amount of oxygen, drag of the water, and depth/length of their “sprints”.
http://www.whoi.edu/fileserver.do?id=39489&pt=2&p=43746
From stories my father told, it was common out west, in the old days, for a poor boy to get a canteen, a sack of parched corn, and a rope. He would catch a ride with some one out the where the wild horses were. He would then walk one down an put his rope on it. It took maybe two days, just keeping the horse moving until it was exhausted,
I wonder how long it would take a fit human who wanted a cheetah to walk one down. I bet they would not last as long as a horse.
An unarmed human is just going to become a squeaky toy for a wild cheetah if the human tries to wear down the cheetah.
Assuming you could get around that minor little detail, then, no, it would not take long at all to wear out a cheetah.
As I understand it, humans are far and away the absolute best performing animals when it comes to very-long-distance running. I don’t think there’s another species that even comes close.
We’ve got some other remarkable top-of-the-rung athletic abilities. I don’t think there’s another species that can both climb trees and swim deep underwater, for example. We’re certainly the best long-distance swimmers amongst land dwellers. We might even be the fastest water sprinters amongst land dwellers, too. And we’re pretty respectable jumpers.
Put it all together, and we’re easily the best all-around athletes — even though it’s only long-distance running where we truly can’t be beat. Pick any other animal that can outcompete us in one arena and there’ll be a number of other arenas where we can outcompete it, and likely many with ease.
b&
Top speed is one thing, but for the 100m dash you need the acceleration as well. The birds take a while to get to their top speeds. I don’t know about sea animals – penguins, seals, and sea lions can go pretty fast but I don’t know how quick they can get up to speed.
Reblogged this on Mark Solock Blog.
Fast or not, what I see is a beautiful animal. She is spectacular, but it always saddens me a bit to see such a majestic creature in captivity. That, and the loss of their habitats, where now, captivity may become the only place they survive.
I’m not sure why you guys, but this video brought me to tears.
What a magnificent animal.
AP
And like all kittehs, the cubs are adorable. Live cheetah cub cam. http://www.africam.com/wildlife/cheetah_cubs_tail
“Salome, (our cheetah mother) gave birth to 3 cubs on May 2nd. You can follow them here 24/7 as they grow, eat, play and prepare for their hopeful re-introduction into the wild. Cheetahs are by far the most endangered of the big cats in Africa. Breeding programs, like the one at HESC, are vital to expanding the cheetah’s gene pool and helping to ensure the long term survival of the species.”