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Concept
Northwest African cheetah
Summary
The Northwest African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus hecki), also known as the Saharan cheetah, is a cheetah subspecies native to the Sahara and the Sahel. It is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. In 2008, the population was suspected to number less than 250 mature individuals.
The Northwest African cheetah was described by German zoologist Max Hilzheimer in 1913 under the scientific name Acinonyx hecki.
Felis jubata senegalensis was described by Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville in 1843 based on a cheetah from Senegal. As this name was preoccupied, it is considered synonymous with A. j. hecki.
Acinonyx hecki was the scientific name proposed by Max Hilzheimer in 1913, based upon a captive cheetah in the Berlin Zoological Garden that also originated in Senegal.
The Northwest African cheetah is quite different in appearance from the other African cheetahs. Its coat is shorter and nearly white in color, with spots that fade from black over the spine to light brown on the legs. The face has few or even no spots, and the tear stripes (dark stripes running from the medial canthus of each eye down the side of the muzzle to the corner of the mouth) are often missing. The body shape is basically the same as that of the sub-Saharan cheetah, except that it is somewhat smaller.
This cheetah ranges in the western and central Sahara and the Sahel in small, fragmented populations. Based on data from 2007 to 2012, the cheetah population in West, Central and North Africa has been estimated at 457 individuals in an area of , including 238 cheetahs in Central African Republic and Chad, 191 cheetahs in Algeria and Mali, and 25 cheetahs in the transboundary W, Arli, and Pendjari protected area complex in Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger.
In Niger, populations occur in the northern parts of the country in the Ténéré desert and in the southern savanna region of W National Park. Records in Togo date to the 1970s. The Saharan cheetah is thought to be regionally extinct in Morocco, Western Sahara, Senegal, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana.
Official source
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