It also is the only cat without retractable claws. This allows the claws to always be exposed, acting like cleats when the cheetah is running. The tail is also designed to help maintain balance at high speeds and during quick turns. Other features of the cheetah include its tan coat with many small, round black spots and black tear- shaped marks around the eyes. In fact, the name "cheetah" has its origins in the Hindu word "chita", meaning "the spotted one." The cheetah eats gazelles, young antelope, young calves, warthogs, hares, and game birds. They typically stalk their prey until they are only 30 to 90 feet away. They then burst into a chase that lasts about 20 seconds. The cheetah successfully catches its prey in about half of the chases. Cheetahs prefer grasslands where they have plenty of room to chase and capture their prey. They once roamed in most of the open area of Africa, in the grasslands of India, southern Russia, Iran, and Pakistan
enriched the earth with calcium and phosphorus, minerals essential for healthy bone growth in the new-born calves, and if anywhere could be described as the true home of the restless wildebeest, it was here on these ancestral calving grounds. For nearly two decades the Serengeti wildebeest had been enjoying an (D) unprecedented population explosion. Twenty years ago, there had been perhaps 250,000. Now there were nearly two million, and together with a million gazelles and quarter of a million zebra, they formed the greatest concentration of wild animals left on earth. Nevertheless, of the half million calves now scattered across the plains; fewer than one in three would survive to adulthood. Many would simply lose their mothers in densely packed sea of animals, and fall easy (E) prey to predators. Often a new-born calf would become separated from its mother before it had learned to recognise her. Then the infant would attach itself to anything that
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