63 thoughts on “The most luckiest man in the world”

  2. Hmmm. Quite impressive – the cheetah, although I think the caption calls it a leopard (in French?).

    I’m a lot less impressed by the number of veihicles around though.

    The BBC has an annual 2Big Cat Diary” where they spend a week or two watching Africa’s big cats. The cheetahs regularly sit on top of the Land Rovers to get a view of the surroundings. Better to see prey and avoid predators.

    One cheeta even had a poo (and later, a pee!) into the vehicle – through the open sun roof! Wonder if that’s on you tube…..

    Yup, found it …. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63OK_l5ai3A

    I’m most defintely a dog person, but I absolutely love cheetahs!

    Cheers,
    Norm.

    2. The french caption is correct.

      le guépard (fr), der Gepard (de), el guepardo (es), … vs. le léopard (fr), der Leopard (de), el leopardo (es)

      Cheeta apparently comes from the Hindi word for leopard. So it is the english language that doesn’t properly distinguish between the two species from an etymological point of view.

      1. Morning Dth,

        thanks for that translation and correction. Being a Brit, I’m very bad at languages. A smattering of Frenceh and Italian with a wee tiny bit of Spanish.

        None of which runs to big cat names!

        Cheers & thanks.

        Norm.

    4. I have heard that these ‘photo safaris’ are actually hastening the extinction of cheetahs. There are so many of them following the cats around that they are making it very difficult for the animals to hunt.

  3. This is great! I’ve never seen this video, just an animated gif of the first segment, ending with the dramatic pull back to center after the shot to the left of the truck.

    Hahaha, and I love the illustration of the “CAN’T MOVE NOW” principle, and I’m glad they just moved very gently. 🙂

    Fantastic!

  4. A handy moving lookout point to sit on! Wow! The way it ignores the people is fascinating – they are not prey, they are just landscape. It does not even appear to look at them at all.

    1. “It does not even appear to look at them at all.

      Cats are very good at snobbery. And not landscape, servants.

      2. Indeed. Minions should be seen and not herd, if they have to be seen at all.
        Kudos to pretty much everyone in the vehicle for keeping their individual and communal cools. And keeping the cameras rolling/ clicking.
        Land Rover corp (I’ve forgotten who owns them? Zee Germans?) will be bunnies of extreme unhappiness though : less than one in ten of the vehicles from their production lines. They’ve really lost their former dominance for workhorse vehicles. Not that that’s really been news since the Land Cruisers came out.

      1. I rather like my hand and arm and would not have, under any circumstance, touched that wild cheetah. The event, for the riders, will no doubt provide table talk for a long time.

      1. Don’t be petty! You can pet a lot of wilderness … well, mostly plants.

        1. And rocks! They’re well known for not attacking without being provoked by gravity. (OK ; sometimes they’ll tie your shoelaces together if you’re inattentive. But that’s just them playing.)

      1. Sneaking would have probably startled it – or any touch from behind. See comment #8.

  8. Notice how the cheetah did not engage in direct eye contact with the man in the foreground nor, apparently, with anyone else in the car. Contrary to the depictions in comic strips, cats in general, from the smallest sand cat to the largest amur tiger, do not like to maintain eye contact (although there may be occasional individual cats that do so, but it’s not a typical behavior).

    When a cat is trying to avoid confrontation, it engages in a behavior sometimes referred to as “looking around”, which allows monitoring the local environment without appearing to offer a challenge. Ethologist Paul Leyhausen noted stories of people facing down lions by the simple tactic of staying in front of them and staring them down.

    Guépard, from the information available from a quick search, does, indeed, mean “cheetah” and not “leopard”. It was also the name of a class of destroyers in the French navy in the years leading up to and during WWII.

    It’s hard to say what petting the cheetah would have done; they are more social than leopards and have been tamed, but not truly domesticated. One thing is for sure – if yo ever do want to touch a big cat, be sure it can see what you’re doing. Since cats typically attack from behind, sneaking up on them is bound to be interpreted as a threat.

      1. There’s an old riddle:

        What’s the difference between a cheetah and a cheater?

        The cheetah is a running cat and the cheater is a cunning rat.

        1. Much as I reject the paranormal, I foresee issues with the moderator for you should you next endeavor to explain the difference between a circus and a house of ill-repute.

          1. A cunning stunt indeed – but, then, since my field of study was linguistics, I can genuinely claim to be a…well, you know.

  9. Wow! And the cheetah is so calm there, just posing for the pictures! I agree with darrele: “And not landscape, servants”

    What was the cheetah thinking? C’mon: there is intelligence in those eyes (she or he? anyone can guess?)

    guepard is the French for cheetah. In Spanish we use Guepardo (but lately changed to use cheetah, saying “chita” – http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acinonyx_jubatus)

  10. Kept waiting with trepidation for that The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber moment.

  12. I had been that guy—or even in the truck.

    I expect most of us are happy you weren’t, ’cause you wouldda reached out to pet it, and then we wouldn’t have a website to visit.

  13. The cat really seemed to enjoy having its picture taken. I could easily imagine a caption that said: “Darlin’, do you think I photograph better on left side or my right?”

    1. Anything but “do these spots make me look fat?”

      (Or maybe that’s the just-so story of how the tiger got its vertical stripes?)

  15. Must I really be the first to bring up Christian the Lion? I promise, I am an atheist and the link has nothing to do with religion. Just quality big cat “hugging.”

  16. That had to be in Kenya. The number of tourist trucks is just incredible. It’s amazing that the big cats ever manage to get anything to eat, they are followed around by so many vehicles. I once saw over 50 following a cheetah that was trying to hunt. In the end the poor thing just gave up and waited till we all left. It’s the one aspect of game parks that saddens me.

    1. I had guessed Kenya too.
      Pity there’s no likelihood of oil under the Serengeti. Non-trivial exploration work further down the Rift into Rwanda though. If you like your war zones.

  19. That was just incredible. That the cheetah was so calm about the whole thing is amazing.

  20. Great video – beautiful animal.

    But – call me cynical – I would title this the ‘Luckiest idiot’. He’s lucky enough to be in the right spot at the right time for a once-in-a-lifetime interaction (i.e. sit quietly and marvel at this animal), but instead he holds up his phone and stares at it for the entire duration. Boggling.

    I mean…snap a pic or a few seconds of video…but then put DOWN your fucking phone and enjoy the moment.

    Almost ruined the video for me.

    Meh. People. What can you do.

    AP

    1. Of course, if he hadn’t done as he did, we couldn’t have shared his moment, and it didn’t seem to bother the cat. I will never see Kenya, and the only cheetahs I have ever seen or will ever see are in zoos, confined and constricted. Let me enjoy this moment and vicariously share in an encounter with unbridled nature.

      I read once that Ingrid Newkirk of PETA advocated the abolition of pets and that we should only appreciate animals in their own natural habitat. Well, that includes animals that have been so totally domesticated that they would suffer a species collapse without human intervention. It also includes animals which have developed strong bonds with humans.

      I will give up my cats when they pry them from my cold, dead hands.

      1. “It also includes animals which have developed strong bonds with humans.”

        Animals that have co-evolved with us!

        Next Ingrid will probably think we should let animals eat us. After all, it’s only natural…

    2. Thought the same thing. It’s not like there wasn’t someone else there with a camera.

  24. What a ham! Posing for the camera like a pro.
    (and most luckiest? You obviously never had a nun for a grammar teacher!)

  26. Agh! “Most luckiest”!!
    Try “luckiest” or “most lucky”.

    Single superlatives are OK. Double superlatives are not.

  27. I think the cat jumped up there to get a wider view of the landscape, trees apparently in short supply.

    And if I had been that guy, I think I would have had to clean my seat.

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