49
Similar Species In the Red Sea Hill region of Sudan and south-
east Egypt, the Aardwolf (Proteles cristatus) is said to occur on
the basis of a number of old records. It could be confused with the
Striped Hyaena. The Aardwolf is the smallest hyaena. It is similar
in appearance to the considerably larger Striped Hyaena, with a
shoulder height of 50 cm; weight of up to 11 kg; pointed, fairly large
ears; body and leg striping; and mane of erectile hair down the neck
and back. It also has well-developed canine teeth, but the remainder
of the teeth are few and rudimentary. It almost exclusively eats
termites and to a lesser extent ants.
C ATS
CHEETAH Acinonyx jubatus
Identification The ‘greyhound’ of the big cats, the Cheetah has a
slender body and long legs, with a long, black-spotted and ringed,
white-tipped tail. Its head is small and short-muzzled for its size, with
a black line running from the inner corner of each eye to the corner of
the mouth. This ‘tear-line’ is unique to the Cheetah. The overall body
colour is off-white to pale fawn, liberally sprinkled with more or less
uniformly sized, rounded black spots. Animals living in the Sahara tend
to be paler than those elsewhere, and have shorter coats. Where snow
falls in winter in parts of their Iranian range, Cheetahs’ coats tend
to grow longer at this time. Young cubs have an extensive mantle of
longish grey hair.
Size Shoulder height 80 cm.
Weight 3 0 –72 kg.