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CHEETAHS have a trick up their sleeve when it comes to bringing down prey,
says an Italian biologist. Unlike other cats, their claws are blunt and
straight, and can’t be retracted. Because of this biologists had assumed that
cheetahs simply knock down their prey with the force of their charge. But
Tiziano Londei of the University of Milan looked again at studies of cheetah
behaviour and anatomy and found that they use their dewclaws—their
equivalent of thumbs—to hook prey and pull them off balance (Journal
of Zoology, vol 251, p 535). Dewclaws are usually thought to be
non-functional, but the cheetah’s are large, sharp and strongly curved. This was
well known to huntsmen in India who used tame cheetahs to catch prey, Londei
says, but has escaped the attention of modern biologists.