IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Bottriell, L.G.; Bottriell, P. | |
| Provisional - King cheetah: The case for the evolution of a new race | |
| Full Book | |
In the 1920s, much excitement arose in zoological circles over the appearance of a number of boldly striped and blotched cheetahs in Rhodesia, the like of which had never before been recorded. They eventually came to be regarded as a new species of cheetah, Acinonyx rex (_Pocock_). They were later placed in the completely new genus Paracinonyx (_Kretzoi_). This latter, generic status still stands. But the original species classification was revoked in 1939 on the basis that the animal was little more than a freak aberrant of the common cheetah Acinonyx jubatus. Yet the appearance of spontaneous mutations in cheetah in the 5000 years man and cheetah have associated have been so rare, as to be virtually non-existent. Thus the King Cheetah's appearance, standard across thirty-five specimens recorded to date south of the Zambezi in a portion of southern Africa where the common spotted cheetah has been near exterminated, is unprecedented in such a felid species that was formerly so widely distributed throughout Africa and across south-west Asia to India. |
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