The Kuno conundrum: How to tell Elton from Freddie

Foresters at Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno National Park have a question on their minds these days. How will they identify the recently reintroduced cheetahs once the big cats are fully released in the wild? Tigers have their distinctive stripes – one’s stripes famously read ‘CAT’ – but cheetahs?India’s Project Cheetah has entered stage 2 with the animals moving from quarantine pens into hunting bomas (enclosures) prior to full release. So telling Elton from its brother Freddie, and Sasha from its friend Savannah, will be necessary.But experts say identifying cheetahs from a distance is hard. “It’s difficult to differentiate two cheetahs based on morphology,” said Kuno’s field director Uttam Sharma. And the task will get harder once the cheetahs have cubs.The Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), which is training Madhya Pradesh forest personnel to handle the translocated cats, gave TOI some cheetah-spotting tips.Medium108402962 Spots And Stripes“All cheetahs have unique spot patterns. CCF researchers use a spot recognition program that picks up spot patterns, focusing on the face, side of the body and tail, from base to tip,” said Dr Laurie Marker, CCF founder and executive director. “We are training the members of Cheetah Task Force and Project Cheetah, who will in turn teach the forest guards at Kuno to apply this in the field,” she added.Researchers have been developing this method of cheetah identification for more than 20 years in Africa. While the spots on a cheetah’s face and chest are relatively small and can be discerned only from close, the distinctive black stripes that run from its eyes to its mouth can be identified from afar.Medium108402963 Clusters of spots near a cheetah’s limbs also provide a means of identifying the big cat. The solid black spots on a cheetah’s body are set against an undercoat that ranges from light tan to deep gold, unlike the rosettes on a leopard’s coat that are yellow spots surrounded by black circles. A cheetah’s combination of tawny fur and black spots camouflages it while stalking prey on open land.Known as malar stripes, they protect a cheetah’s eyes from the glare of the sun and help the animals focus on their prey over open forest terrain. They are also unique to every cheetah, giving each a slightly different facial expression.Medium108402964 Tail To HeadCheetah tail markings are also distinctive. The tails end in bushy tufts encircled by five or six dark rings, followed by half-broken rings that appear in varying patterns on both sides. The tip of a cheetah’s tail varies in colour from white to black, and it is thought to be a signalling device, helping young cubs follow their mothers through tall grasses.Male cheetahs are larger than females and have bigger heads. By noting this and the patterns in three places on a cheetah’s body, MP forest guards will be able to identify the eight reintroduced cheetahs and their cubs.“With cheetah cubs, the spots appear on the limbs first, then on the tail, and finally on the body. Unlike hyena spots, they do not fade with time but become brighter and provide researchers with the ability to identify a cheetah from as early as possibly just four weeks of age,” said Dr Marker.