How cheetahs outpace greyhounds
In a 0-60 mph stand off, most cars would be hard pressed to give a cheetah a run for its money, and at their highest recorded speed of 29m/s (65mph) cheetahs easily outstrip the fastest greyhounds. But, according to Alan Wilson from the Royal Veterinary College, UK, there is no clear reason for the cheetah's exceptional performance. 'Cheetahs and greyhounds are known to use a rotary gallop and physically they are remarkably similar, yet there is this bewitching difference in maximum speed of almost a factor of two', he says. Teaming up with Penny Hudson and Sandra Corr, Wilson decided to compare how cheetahs and greyhounds sprint to see if there were any mechanical differences between the two animals' movements and they publish their findings in The Journal of Experimental Biology at http://jeb.biologists.org.